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Today is December 13.
On this date in 1937 the Japanese Army occupies Nanking, China. For the next three weeks, with the unspoken permission of the army, soldiers literally rape the city, committing untold individual acts of atrocity and killing 350,000 civilians. It became know as The Rape of Nanking but remains an event unacknowledged and unapologized by the Japanese government.
It is for the crimes against the women of Nanking that this tragedy is most notorious. Over the six weeks of the massacre, in addition to the murder of about 300,000 civilians, the Japanese troops raped over 20,000 women, most of whom were murdered thereafter. In recognition of these horrifying acts, the massacre is also commonly referred to as 'the rape of Nanking.'
Women of all ages (including children as young as seven and elderly women in their seventies) were violated, many of them being gangraped or attacked on multiple occasions. Some women were held captive so that the could be repeatedly abused. Rapes were committed in broad daylight, in front of spouses, children, or other family members, and with appalling frequency.
The soldiers' usual practice, officially condoned by high-ranking officials so as to "avoid difficulties," was to murder the women when they were finished with them. This was most often done by cutting off their breasts and/or disemboweling them with a bayonet to the abdomen. Senior officers were not only aware of these acts, but participated in them as well.
According to reports from Nanking, so many Chinese were beheaded, it left Japanese soldiers exhausted at day's end.
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