Iris Chang, writer of the book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II said in the introduction of her book“The Chronicle of humankind's cruelty to fellow humans is a long and sorry tale” (Chang). There have been many times in history that people are cruel and harm other people for no good reason and kill people in masses known as genocide. Some of these aren’t as well known as others but are also gruesome. The “rape” of Nanjing was one of these genocides that weren’t as much heard about and was horrible what happened. It was a murder that occurred during the six-week period after Japan invaded China and took control of the capital city of Nanjing. Much like what the Nazi’s did to Jews in Germany, the Japanese used advanced military and a thought that they were the superior race and all others should be killed. To take over China, Japan’s imperial army took advantage that China was surrounded by water on two sides and went up the river valleys of China’s three main rivers. On their path to Nanjing and in the six weeks after the invasion, Japanese killed Chinese civilians in very heinous ways and destroyed their towns and cities. In a very old and famous city, Tai Hu, the population dropped dramatically. In The Rape of Nanjing it shows just how bad it was in that old city of Tau Hu, “The invasion, according to the China Weekly Review, caused the population of the city to drop from 350,000 to less than 500” (Chang). This dropped because the residents were being killed and others were fleeing. The Japanese destroyed the ancient city for days. Ancient landmarks were burnt down and they even abducted thousands of Chinese women for sexual slavery. When the Japanese came through the gates of the city, all of the residents who had money, power, or foresight had already left for parts unknown so they wouldn’t be killed by the Japanese.
The Japanese soldiers marched into China and began killing the people.
