He was the shortest-serving "mayor" of Nanjing, and the people of Nanjing called him a living bodhisattva. On April 1, 2020, the Chinese ambassador to Germany received a letter from a doctor named Dr. Thomas Rabe of Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany, saying that they were now in urgent need of a group of drugs produced in China and wanted to save their families and patients. Only because his grandfather has saved the lives of more than 200,000 Chinese! Must be given unconditionally! Who is this person? Who was his grandfather?
Time back to the Nanjing Massacre 82 years ago, in November 1937, the Japanese invasion of China attacked Nanjing, the foreigners at that time fled, at this time a German man sent away his wife and children, but he turned around and returned to Nanjing, he found 23 foreign friends, risked his life, in Nanjing U.S. Embassy, Nanjing Jinling University, Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences, all the way to the Gulou Xinjiekou less than four square kilometers, this German as his Nazi, A safe zone was built here for Nanjing refugees, where 300,000 Chinese took refuge, and after the Nanjing Massacre, 250,000 refugees walked out of the safe zone.
This German was the grandfather of the doctor who had written to the University Hospital in Heidelberg, Germany, and his name was John. Rabe, known as "China's Schindler". In 1882 John. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Rabe worked in a local trading house as an adult, and in 1918 he and his wife came to China to work for the German representative office of Siemens in Beijing, where he stayed for 30 years.
In September 1937, when Japanese planes began to bomb Nanjing, Rabe's house began to become a refuge for neighbors, and every day when the door was opened, countless women and children knelt in his yard to ask for shelter. As the war became more and more fierce, he sent his wife and children to Beijing and then, he hurried back to Nanjing, in addition to the property that he was reluctant to stay in Nanjing, more was he worried about those Nanjing refugees who had no way to go, at this time Nanjing was simply a purgatory on earth, about a million of the poorest people stayed here, what should they do when he left?
He united 23 foreign friends to set up a national committee to establish a safe zone, and he served as the chairman of the committee to protect the refugees in Nanjing. At this time, his work unit Siemens headquarters and the German ambassador to China sent a letter to persuade him to leave Nanjing quickly, but he refused, saying that I had decided to stay in Nanjing to preside over the work of the International Committee to establish a neutral zone to protect more than 200,000 civilians. It was easy to establish a safe zone in the midst of the war, and the food, cooking utensils, medicine, fuel, and even garbage removal needed to resettle refugees had to be financed, and Rabe was busy with these things every day, but what he was most anxious about was that the safe zone he had established did not seem to be very safe, and he was often pulled by refugees to stop the atrocities committed by the Japanese army. On many occasions, he risked his life to stop the Japanese troops who were preparing to slaughter Chinese and to drive away the Japanese troops who were trying to rob Miss J.
However, a person's strength is limited, he can not give all refugees safety and security, so he wrote to the Counselor of the Japanese Embassy, hoping that he would stop the atrocities of the Japanese Army, and at the same time begged him to help the Red Cross to obtain the approval of the Japanese military authorities in Nanjing, but his appeals and requests did not play any role, even in the refugee areas, as long as he was not there, the Japanese army burned and robbed, raped women often occurred, for this reason he did not dare to leave home for half a moment He recorded the criminal acts of the Japanese army and sent them to the Counselor of the Japanese Embassy, but with little effect. At that time, he had the intention to kill the enemy but was powerless to return to heaven, in order to let the Japanese side recognize the existence of the safe zone, he ran around to appeal, he once sent a telegram to the Japanese ambassador, asking the Japanese government to recognize the safe zone, but the Japanese authorities did not give a reply.
He also wrote to Hitler, asking his fuehrer to persuade the Japanese government to agree to the establishment of a neutral zone for the civilians, and he also wrote to Kliber, consul general of the German Consulate General in Shanghai, asking him to support his actions, but still did not get a reply, Hitler did not want to offend Japan, an ally, chose to remain neutral, in despair he received a reply from the Japanese authorities, the answer was to refuse to establish a safe zone application, but at the end of the reply there is such a sentence, as long as the safe zone does not conflict with the necessary military measures of the Japanese side, The Japanese government will strive to respect the region, and this sentence gives Rabe great hopes, Rabe, who regards the Japanese government as agreeing to establish a safe zone, has repeatedly asked the Japanese military to maintain security.
The Nanjing municipal government had withdrawn, and Rabe had to take on the work of municipal administration in the refugee area, and he once jokingly called himself the "executive mayor" of Nanjing. In 1938, the refugees in the safety zone presented Rabe with a 6-square-meter piece of red silk cloth as a gift, which read: Help the needy, Buddha's heart and hero's bones. Someone told Rabe that they were saying that you were a living bodhisattva for hundreds of thousands of people, and Rabe burst into tears.
In April 1938, Rabe was recalled to Germany, after returning to China, he gave speeches everywhere to make reports, sent a report "Enemy Planes Flying to Nanjing" to Hitler, exposing the atrocities of the Japanese army in Nanjing, hoping to get Hitler's support, but he not only hoped to fail, but also went to prison, in 1946 sat in prison for a year, he was released, after being released from prison, Rabe's life was difficult, he could only drink vegetable soup and nibble dry bread every day, the citizens of Nanjing knew the news, and in just a few days they raised a hundred million bills to remit him, and in the days that followed, Every once in a while, he would receive clothes from the citizens of Nanjing.
The 200,000 nanjing people he protected never forgot him, and on January 5, 1950, at the age of 68, Rabe died in West Berlin, and 47 years later, the tombstone of the living Bodhisattva of China was moved back to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. And today, when China receives Rabe's grandson Thomas. After Rabe's message for help, our people boiled over, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology quickly contacted a pharmaceutical company in Zhejiang, the medicines needed by Thomas through international flights, in the fastest way, Rabe's name will always be Chinese especially the people of Nanjing, generations will never be far away
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