War is the tragedy of an era and the pain of a nation. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, a German single-handedly saved 250,000 Chinese, and after returning to China, he was shipwrecked in his old age and lived in a difficult situation. In 1948 Chinese people raised a hundred million to thank him!
All-out war of aggression against China
In 1937, a year of disaster for China, on July 7 of that year, Japanese imperialism created the Lugou Bridge Incident. Japanese imperialism began an all-out war of aggression against China, and after invading and occupying Pingjin, it was ready to launch a large-scale attack on Shanghai. On August 13, the Japanese army launched a large-scale attack on Shanghai, using warships in the concession and the Huangpu River as a combat base, shelling the Zhabei area, and the Chinese military and civilians rose up to fight back, which was the "August 13" incident.
Under the impetus of the wave of resistance against Japan by the whole people, the Kuomintang government issued the "Declaration of Self-Defense and Resistance Against Japanese Aggression" the next day, declaring that "China will never give up any part of its territory, and in the event of aggression, it can only respond by practicing the natural right of self-defense." The Ninth Army of the local Chinese garrison, under the command of Commander-in-Chief Zhang Zhizhong, bravely resisted the Japanese invading army. Since then, the famous "Battle of Lusong" has broken out in full swing, and the war lasted for more than three months, although it effectively blocked Japan's ambition to destroy China in three months, but it also paid a tragic price. In November, the Nationalist army completely collapsed, and on November 13, the Battle of Lusong was defeated, and the Japanese army occupied the Yangtze River Delta region.
After the Battle of Songhu, the Japanese army took advantage of the situation to rush to Nanjing in three ways. Due to the haste of issuing the retreat order, the handover of the national defense fortifications in the rear was wrong, and with the large-scale bombing of the Japanese bombers, the retreat evolved into a major rout, so that the main force of the Japanese army on the north road reached Nanjing smoothly. Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, was under the direct threat of the Japanese army, so the patriots in the city of Nanjing launched the "Nanjing Defense War". However, in the face of the all-out attack of the Japanese army, the defense of Nanjing was only blocked for 10 days before the army collapsed and was forced to withdraw from Nanjing, and Since then Nanjing has fallen.
Nanjing Massacre
After the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, the supreme administrative officer was the commander of the Japanese Central China Front
Matsui Ishine
and division commander
Hisao Tani
The commander carried out an organized, planned and premeditated massacre and bloody atrocities such as rape, arson, and robbery for 6 weeks, committing heinous crimes. More than 300,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed!
The arrogant Japanese army, after receiving orders from its superiors, began a heinous massacre in Nanjing. On the third day after the occupation alone, more than 50,000 Chinese civilians were slaughtered, and the civilians in Nanjing were driven to the river downstream of the coal port and fired en masse.
Even in the Sixteenth Division of the Japanese Army, there was a "killing contest", which was inferior to the beast. They competed to kill 100 people first, and serialized the atrocities in the Tokyo Ildo Shimbun newspaper.
In addition to the massacres, the Japanese army raped thousands of women during the occupation of Nanjing. Not only did they force Chinese women to serve as "comfort women" in the military, but they were also brutally killed. The large-scale burning and looting of the Japanese army also caused the rapid epidemic of venereal diseases in all units of the Japanese army.
In addition to these, the Japanese army frantically plundered the gold, silver treasures and cultural treasures in Nanjing. The Japanese army sent 330 special agents, 367 soldiers, and 830 hard laborers to spend a month from March 1938 to remove more than a dozen trucks of books and documents every day, snatching a total of 880,000 books and documents, exceeding the 850,000 volumes of the Ueno Imperial Library in Tokyo, japan's largest library at that time.
Schindler of China
Friends who have seen the Hollywood war movie "Schindler's List" should be impressed. Schindler, a German businessman, made his fortune by making war supplies from a cheap Jewish labor force. After witnessing the brutal massacre of Jews by the German Nazis, he saved 1,200 Jews with all his belongings. After Schindler's death, many surviving Jews and their descendants paid tribute to him every year.
There is also such a "Schindler" in China, who is also German and named Johann Rabe. Born on 23 November 1882 in Hamburg, Germany. His father was a captain, and under his father's influence, Rabe was brave and responsible from an early age. However, the weather was unpredictable, and his father died of illness at the age of 14. After graduating from junior high school, Rabe worked as a partner in an exporting firm before working for several years for a prestigious British company in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique in southeastern Africa.
In 1908, Rabe was hired by the German Siemens China company and began to do business in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing and other places in China. From the first time he came to China, he fell in love with China, so he has been doing this work for more than 30 years.
In November 1937, when the invading Japanese army began bombing Nanjing, Rabe was appointed deputy director of the Nanjing branch of the German Nazi Party, and it was precisely because of this status that he protected more than 600 Chinese refugees at the Siemens factory in Nanjing. After the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, it began a crazy massacre. Rabe witnessed the crimes of the Japanese army and felt that he should do something, so Rabe and dozens of foreign missionaries, professors, doctors, businessmen, etc. jointly initiated the establishment of the Nanjing Safe Zone, and served as the chairman of the International Committee of the Security Zone. And start writing
The Rabe Diary
。
Together with other international friends, Rabe, who is the chairman of the Nanjing International Safety Zone, has built a safe home for Chinese civilians in less than 4 square kilometers of security, saving more than 250,000 lives Chinese. He led the committee members to seek international assistance, raise funds, buy food and medicine, especially through hardships, and obtained broad beans from Shanghai that could prevent the spread of athlete's foot, so that in the nanjing massacre of more than 40 days, 250,000 Chinese stubbornly survived and survived.
Zhi En Tu Bao
Although the Japanese army discovered that there were a large number of Chinese in the security zone established by Raabe, because Germany and Japan had already signed the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact at that time, and Japan had never dared to oppose European countries, the Japanese army did not dare to easily invade the security zone established by Raabe. The Japanese, instead, called the German Nazis in an attempt to use the matter to put pressure on Germany. Eventually, the headquarters of Siemens in Germany ordered the recall of Raabe, and in early 1938, Raabe was forced to return to Germany.
On New Year's Day 1938, the refugees from Nanjing gathered in a line in the courtyard of John Rabe's mansion to bow to Rabe and present him with a large red silk cloth that read, "You are a living bodhisattva for hundreds of thousands of people." In this way, he expressed his life-saving grace for Rabe.
Upon his return to Germany, Raabe wrote to Hitler, the then German Supreme Fuehrer, to submit a report on the Nanjing Massacre, but Germany was interested in forming an ally with Japan at the time and did not publish his report. In 1945, after the end of World War II, Rabe was arrested by the Soviet Union and then the British for being a member of the Nazi Party. After more than a year of arrest, Rabe finally confirmed that he had made no mistakes and was released. However, since then, his life has not landed, and the family's meal is a big problem.
In 1948, Rabe's diabetes worsened but there was no money to be hospitalized, and soon after the news reached China, Chinese people raised a hundred million yuan to help Rabe tide over the difficulties. But fate once again tricked this kind man, and on January 5, 1950, Rabe fell ill again and died.
Posthumous commemoration
After Rabe's death, his diary was kept by his grandson, and Rabe's Diary was published in China in 1997. The book is a record of John Rabe's personal witness to the Nanjing Massacre. The time span is from September 1937 to February 1938. In addition to writing his diary, Rabe also kept more than 80 photographs taken on the spot, which were illustrated in detail. It is recognized as the most numerous and well-preserved historical material discovered in recent years to study the events of the Nanjing Massacre. It is a bloody and tearful indictment of the Nanjing Massacre caused by the Japanese army invading China and a powerful testimony to the crimes committed by Japanese imperialism.
In 1950, when Rabe died almost unknown, there was no mourning of any kind, and his tombstone only wrote "A good man, an indomitable man, John Rabe". Although Nanjing repeatedly applied to the Berlin municipal government to transport the Raabe tombstone to China for long-term preservation, Germany did not agree until 1997, when the land occupation period expired, and the Berlin municipal department wanted to clear the Raabe cemetery in the western suburbs cemetery. Rabe's tombstone was successfully transported to Nanjing, China for preservation, and is now on display at the Jiangdongmen Memorial Hall in Nanjing.
To this day, there are still countless Chinese who come to pay homage to this international friend, The name of Mr. John Rabe, which will be remembered forever.