This article is transferred from: Foreign Research Agency
December 13, national memorial day for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
After the fall of Nanking in 1937, the Japanese army blatantly violated international conventions and massacred unarmed civilians and soldiers who laid down their arms, with a total of more than 300,000 victims.
What is more distressing than the disaster itself, however, is the apathy and forgetting of the perpetrators. Compatriots killed and their families have never received a public, formal apology in Japan. The Western world is also far less aware of it than Auschwitz, although the nature and extent of the two are highly similar.
Among the many voices who spoke out for the Nanjing Massacre, a Chinese-American female writer named Zhang Chunru wrote in English a book called The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, which filled the gap in the English-language world that no one recorded and allowed the world to re-examine the disaster of that year.
However, the cruel historical facts and harassment and revenge caused the "female warrior" to have a nervous breakdown, and eventually drank bullets and died. Slovak is dead, but her name should not be forgotten, and her story deserves to be remembered forever.
Zhong Lingyu Xiu has a woman like a pure
Zhang Chunru was born on March 28, 1968, to a respected Chinese family in the United States. Her grandfather was Zhang Tiejun, a general in the Anti-Japanese Nationalist Army, and her parents were high-ranking intellectuals.
Photo of zhang Chunru (first from right) with his family
Although born in a foreign country, Zhang Chunru's parents hope that the identity of Yanhuang's descendants can become Zhang Chunru's life brand. "Pure as" is taken from the Analects, which means "pure harmony" and represents the noblest and most beautiful spiritual quality in Chinese.
From an early age, Zhang Chunru's parents often told her stories about the motherland on the other side of the ocean. These childhood memories are rooted in her heart like seeds, and when the opportunity arises later, they will grow and sprout.
Zhang Chunru, who has a calm personality, is very interested in writing. She graduated from the University of Illinois in Journalism, earned a master's degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University, and worked as a journalist for the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune.
Zhang Chunru, pure and bright in his student days
In December 1994, Zhang Chunru attended a conference on the Nanjing Massacre in Cupertino, California, and saw many photographs of the Japanese army mutilating the people of Nanjing. Although the photographs were black and white, the blood of the victims and the painfully distorted expressions on their faces were shocking.
Why do so few people know about such a tragic thing? At the same time of despair and anger, Zhang Chunru's conscience and the cultural genes in the depths of her life make her feel obliged to stand up for her compatriots who were killed.
She decided to write a book for them. This is the origin of "The Nanjing Massacre: The Forgotten Great Holocaust of World War II".
The book is a blockbuster
In the preface to this book, Zhang Chunru describes in detail his mental journey of seeing the Nanjing Massacre, including a thought-provoking passage:
I was suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it.
This cruelty and contempt for death and its processes, this great regression of human society, will be relegated to a worthless historical episode, or an insignificant error in a computer program that may or may not cause any problems again. Unless someone urges the world to remember this history, tragedy could be repeated at any time. At this point, I suddenly fell into a huge panic.
In order to restore history as much as possible, Zhang Chunru extensively collected written materials from China, Japan, Germany and Britain, and dug deep into the evidence left by those present, such as private diaries, letters, and policy documents, including the precious "Rabe Diary" and "Weitlin Diary". These two diaries, like "Anne Frank's Diary", recorded in detail and faithfully the tragic situation in the city of Nanjing, and until now, they are still the most convincing first-hand historical materials about the Nanjing Massacre.
In addition, Zhang Chunru visited the scene many times, visited the survivors and their families in Nanjing, and also wrote letters to Japanese World War II veterans, combed through the transcripts of the trial of war criminals in Tokyo, and rigorously examined every historical detail.
Zhang Chunru with Nanjing Massacre survivor Xia Shuqin (second from left) The first left is Duan Yueping, deputy director of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall
Under the intensity of his work, in December 1997, Zhang Chunru wrote and published The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II in English.
Zhang Chunru's English writings
The general translation of "Nanjing Massacre" is Nanjing Massacre. Massacre means "mass slaughter", such as the Manila Massacre.
But Zhang Chunru translated the "Nanjing Massacre" as The Rape of Nanking. Compared with masacre, rape has a richer meaning, and is more literary and emotionally powerful. Rape not only means "rape", but also refers to "wanton destruction and ravage".
rape (of something)
(literary) the act of destroying an area or damaging its beauty in a way that seems unnecessary
Destroying an area or destroying its beauty in an unnecessary way
Nanjing, once an ancient city in Jiangnan with graceful style and enthusiasm, was shamelessly bullied and trampled on. The Rape of Nanking conveys a strong sense of bitterness and resentment.
The Slovaks are gone and will never forget
After the publication of The Rape of Nanking, it caused a huge sensation in the international community, and within a month it was listed on the New York Times bestseller list and was named the most popular book of the year.
However, for Zhang Chunru, this is also the beginning of the tragedy of her life.
Because the publication of the book infringed on the interests of some people, Zhang Chunru kept receiving threatening letters and phone calls, and had to change his phone number all the time. Coupled with years of exposure to cruel historical facts, under the high pressure of the spirit, she soon suffered from depression, and the suffering she endured was unimaginable to ordinary people. Although she had fought her illness strongly and had already begun to write another book about the mistreatment of American World War II soldiers in the Philippines by the Japanese, she eventually collapsed.
On November 9, 2004, Zhang Chunru parked her car next to a stretch of road, shot herself inside the car, leaving behind her deeply concerned relatives and friends, as well as her child who had just turned 2 years old.
In her suicide note, she wrote bitterly:
Each breath is becoming difficult for me to take——the anxiety can be compared to drowning in an open sea. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. Please forgive me.
Every breath was so hard for me – it was like drowning in the sea. I know that my actions cause pain to others, especially those who love me dearly. Please forgive me.
Those who spoke out for the Nanjing Massacre eventually became victims of that disaster.
This may also mean that more than sixty years later, the damage caused by that catastrophe has never stopped. To this day, due to the falsified history and unrepentantness of the perpetrators, the Nanjing Massacre has still become an indelible tragedy in the hearts of every Chinese.
Zhang Chunru in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall Zhang Chunru in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall is a bronze statue
Although he died young, Zhang Chunru's brave and resolute life still deeply touched people. Her deeds have been made into films and documentaries many times, and her biographies have been widely disseminated in the international community.
As Bill Swiftik, director of the documentary film "Zhang Chunru," put it:
"Our film, through the eyes of a brave young woman, bears witness to those creepy events, witness what Zhang Chunru has seen before, and get a closer look at her inner feelings as she explores this dark journey." We made this film to remind us that there is a darker ugliness hidden beneath the fragile civilization of this society, and if we forget this, misfortune will continue to happen. ”
China has been a peace-loving country since ancient times. That is why we have an unforgettable responsibility for inhumane killing.
With this article, I would like to commemorate the compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre and Ms. Zhang Chunru. At the same time, it also pays tribute to thousands of people like Zhang Chunru who are willing to record and remember the Nanjing Massacre.
The content of this article is transferred from: Foreign Research Agency