80 years after the massacre, how did Nanjing return to its current prosperity?

On December 13, 1937, the Japanese invaders occupied the ancient capital of Nanjing and openly violated international conventions. For six weeks, they massacred Chinese soldiers and civilians who laid down their arms, resulting in the death of more than 300,000 Chinese soldiers. Compatriots were killed.

In this human catastrophe, a group of international friends risked their lives to stay. They rescued more than 200,000 Nanjing people and witnessed the atrocities committed by the Japanese army.

Let us remember their names: John Rabe, Minnie Vautrin, John Magee, Robert Wilson, George Fitch...

John ·Rabe

Born in 1882 in Hamburg, Germany. He came to China in 1908 and soon became an employee of Germany's Siemens Company, doing business in Beijing, Tianjin, Nanjing and other places. Rabe and his family have lived in China for nearly 30 years, and his children and granddaughter were all born in China. They have forged close friendship with the Chinese people. On the eve of the Japanese invasion of Nanjing in 1937, he and more than a dozen foreign missionaries, professors, doctors, businessmen and other leaders jointly initiated the establishment of the Nanjing Safety Zone and served as chairman of the International Committee of the Safety Zone.

He and some international friends ran around in the extremely dangerous and difficult war environment at that time, desperately protesting and doing their best to prevent the Japanese army from inflicting crazy violence on the Chinese people.

The Nanjing Safety Zone they established provided temporary shelter for approximately 250,000 Chinese civilians. In his own house and small garden, more than 600 Chinese refugees were crowded in and protected. Rabe also recorded in his diary and other writings the heinous atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing.

After he returned to Germany in April 1938, he held consecutive reporting meetings and submitted written reports to the German authorities, continuing to expose the crimes committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing. "Rabe's Diary" is the largest and most complete historical material discovered so far on the Nanjing Massacre.

Vautrin’s Chinese name is Hua Qun, an American missionary.

Minnie Vautrin was born on September 27, 1886 in the small town of Secor, Illinois, USA. In 1919, Vautrin applied to work at Nanjing Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences.

During the Nanjing Massacre, Vautrin served as the American provost of Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences. She is also a member of the Nanjing Branch of the International Red Cross and the director of the refugee shelter of Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences, and has rescued tens of thousands of women and children. During the Nanjing Massacre, the diary written by Vautrin became the most convincing evidence exposing the sexual atrocities committed by the Japanese army.

As she wrote on Friday, December 17, 1937: "Many tired and frightened women came again and said they had spent a horrible night. Japanese soldiers kept visiting their homes. . Girls ranging from 12 years old to 60-year-old women were raped. The husband was forced to leave the bedroom and the pregnant wife was bayoneted. "

As shown in a diary entry on December 16, 1937 (Thursday). : "I don't know how many innocent, hard-working farmers and workers were killed today. We let all women over 40 go home to be with their husbands and sons, leaving only their daughters and daughter-in-law to stay. Tonight we are going to Taking care of more than 4,000 women and children. Not knowing how long we can survive under this kind of pressure is an indescribable horror."

Vautrin was in such a tense and terrifying day. , worked exhaustingly for dozens of days and nights. Excessive fatigue and long-term mental stress caused her to suffer from severe mental depression.

On May 14, 1940, after much persuasion, she left Nanjing and returned to the United States for medical treatment.

On May 14, 1941, the first anniversary of her leaving China, she chose to end her life and died in an ordinary apartment in Indiana. She was only 55 years old. Before she died, she said: "If I could live again, I would still serve the Chinese people." Her tombstone was engraved with four Chinese characters - Jinling of Eternal Life.

John Magee

John Magee, an American missionary, was born in 1884 into a lawyer family in the United States. After graduating from Yale University and the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Magee was sent as a priest by the American Episcopal Church to preach in China in 1912.

After arriving in China, he served as a missionary at the Nanjing Daosheng Church of the American Episcopal Church. In December 1937, during the tragic massacre carried out by the Japanese army in Nanjing, Magee served as chairman of the Nanjing Committee of the International Red Cross and a member of the International Committee of the Nanjing Safety Zone. He established a refugee hospital for wounded soldiers and participated in the rescue of more than 200,000 Chinese who were facing massacre. people.

During the Nanjing Massacre, Magee wrote many letters to his wife in the United States, all of which contained his records of the atrocities committed by the Japanese army. He also risked his life to secretly film the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing with a 16mm camera.

At that time, the Japanese army strictly controlled the movements of foreigners, and photography and filming were absolutely prohibited. Pastor Magee wrote in the introduction to the film: "You must act with caution, and you must not let the Japanese see you when taking pictures." In the shots he took, the city was full of ruins and Chinese women who were raped by the Japanese army. The corpses burned by gasoline were horrific. The streets and ponds were full of civilians who had been bloody massacred by the Japanese army.

Maji also photographed many citizens at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital who were mutilated by the Japanese army. Some of them became witnesses against the Nanjing Massacre. One of the patients he photographed being treated was Li Xiuying, who was 6 months pregnant. She was stabbed 37 times because she resisted being raped by Japanese soldiers. Li Xiuying, who survived, went to Japan many times after the war to participate in peace rallies to accuse the Japanese army of atrocities.

Robert Wilson

In the winter of 1937, in Nanjing, thousands of refugees who had narrowly escaped death were suffering from knife wounds, gunshot wounds, and burns, and were in critical condition. Robert Wilson was the only surgeon in Nanjing at that time.

In January 1936, after receiving his doctorate in medicine from Harvard University, he came to the then Drum Tower Hospital of Jinling University as the chief surgeon.

From August 15, 1937, the Japanese army began to carry out "indiscriminate" bombing of Nanjing. His wife evacuated with their daughter, but Wilson chose to stay. On December 13, 1937, four pieces of shrapnel passed through the window of the operating room of Gulou Hospital. Wilson, who was performing eye removal surgery on the wounded, witnessed the tragic moment when the Japanese army occupied Nanjing.

Wilson's surgical tasks are very heavy. On December 14th alone, the day after the Japanese troops entered the city, he performed 11 operations. By December 18, there were as many as 150 wounded people requiring his direct treatment. In the middle of the night, Wilson was often called up to deliver babies to pregnant women, or to stop Japanese soldiers from robbing or raping. Due to overexertion, he even injected hormones into his body in order to support himself during the operation.

As the only surgeon in Nanjing at the time, Wilson personally treated thousands of injured refugees. The brutal Japanese army did not spare Gulou Hospital. On the night of December 18, three nurses were raped by Japanese soldiers who forcibly entered the dormitory of Gulou Hospital.

In a letter to his wife that night, Wilson wrote angrily: "Today is the sixth day of contemporary Dante's Purgatory, written in bloody and obscene large letters. A large number of people were massacred, Thousands of women were raped. It seemed that no force could stop the cruelty, lust and brutality of these beasts." In the second half of 1940, Wilson's five-year term at Gulou Hospital ended and he returned. U.S. In 1946, Wilson went to Tokyo, Japan, as a witness to the Nanjing Massacre and testified at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which tried Japanese war criminals. Wilson died of illness in 1967 at the age of 61.

In addition, 80 years ago, many international friends provided humanitarian assistance to Chinese refugees in distress.

They are:

George Fitch, Director-General of the International Committee of the Nanjing Safety Zone (he secretly took the Nanjing Massacre film shot by Pastor Magee out of Nanjing)

American professor at Jinling University , Sher Bates, member of the International Committee of the Nanjing Safety Zone (submitted letters protesting against the atrocities of the Japanese army to the Japanese Embassy in China many times)

American missionary Wilson Mills (providing food, fuel and other relief to refugees Product)

Ernest Foster, American missionary and secretary of the Nanjing Branch of the International Red Cross (took many photos of Japanese atrocities and Nanjing refugees)

Ninling University Beauty Professor Lewis Smythe

American physician Clifford Trimmer of Gulou Hospital

Grace Ball, director of the pathology laboratory of Gulou Hospital

Eva Heinz, nurse at Gulou Hospital

......

Their deeds

In "We Witness Together: The 1937 Nanjing Massacre" 》Historical Exhibition