a mystery novel...

>> iris chang, author of "the c-span: iris chang, author of "the rape of nanking: the forgotten holocaust of world war ii," when did you first think about writing this book? >> guest: well, it goes back ath long way.go i mean, i learned about this event when i was a little childk but i really didn't think about writing the book until ii finished my first one, "thread an california that was devoted to preserving the history of this event. >> what was "the rain of man king qet? >> that's one of the greatest atrocities of world history in december of 1937, the japanese swept into the capital of china, which was then man king and within six to eight weeks they butchered, raped an tortured hundreds of thousands of chinese civilians. 300,000 people ultimately died

during this massacre and they raped an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 women during this period. >> why is there such a discrepancy between 20,000 and 80,000? >> it's often difficult to ascertain the exact number. many women were reluctant to come out with these facts at the time. >> i'm looking at page 59 and there's a gentleman here by the name of okuto. who is he? >> well, he was a doctor. he's a doctor now but back in 1937, he was one of the soldiers who committed atrocities in nan king. >> there's a -- i'm going to read something here in a moment but have you met him em >> no. no. this was taken from an article, but the story was just so compelling that i had to put it in my book. >> before i read this, tell me what the story is. >> well, he was in -- are we talking about the story in the

article itself? >> well there's a shrine -- >> well, he's a doctor now and he feels so terrible about what he did, so he has put the pictures of the -- i guess some of the atrocities in the waiting room of his clinic. and so patients of his can see what he did in nan king. >> let me read a little bit from what you have got in your book. i remember being driven in a truck along a path that had been cleared through piles of thousands and thousands of slaughtered bodies. wild dogs were gnawing at the dead flesh as we stopped and pulled a group of chinese prisoners out of the back. then the japanese officer proposed a test of my courage. he unsheathed his sword, spat on it and with a sudden mighty swing he brought it down on the neck of a chinese boy cowering before us. the head was cut clean off and tumbled away on the group as the body slumped forward, blood spurting in two great gushing fountains from the neck. the officer suggested i take the

head home as a souvenir. i remember smiling proudly as i took his sword and began killing people. why'd you -- you know, obviously this bothered you. why did you put this in there? >> i wanted to show people that the japanese soldiers were incal kated to plit violence. this is not a story that was an isolated incident. this was happening throughout nan king and they -- they massacred people all the way up to the capital and they even held killing contests in order desensitize the japanese soldiers from feeling reluctant in committing these atrocities. >> got a picture here of corporations along the yangtze river. the big one. where did you find this picture? >> this picture, that one came from -- that's -- yeah, that's a

japanese correspondent who took that picture. that was reprinted in several other publications. so it's really -- i'm telling you, that's not the most gruesome picture there. you may not want to show the audience some of the others that are in my book. >> well, actually, i think we do want to show the pictures so they can see -- i mean, not that picture, on the other side if we can pick it up on the other side. that picture right there. that -- what's this? >> the one on the left? >> right here. >> oh, right, that's a number of heads that have just been put out. you know, this was the typical scene in nan king, beheadings, then sometimes they would put heads up on posts like that picture underneath. so that people could understand what it would be like if they continued to resist japan. >> and where was this done? >> this was done in nan king,

but also throughout -- i mean, throughout china, actually. >> what was the history of why the japanese were in china in 1937 in nanking? >> well, in 1937, the japanese found an opportunity to provoke a war with china, and it's called the marco paolo bridge incident. and we probably don't have too much detail -- we don't have too much time to go into that, but it's ka lated into a full-scale war and the japanese invaded shanghai in the fall of 1937, and the -- they had originally thought that the war would take place only -- only three months, they thought they could conquer japan in a matter of months but when one battle alone in one chinese city, shanghai dragged on for that long, the japanese were anxious to into make an example of the city. they were fears you and frustrated and that was the mood that the soldiers were in as

they marched from shanghai to nanking. >> where isianking in china? >> nanking is situated in a bend of the yangtze river. maybe we can show a map right now. >> i'll find it. go ahead. >> it's only a few miles away really. >> this shows the massacre location. >> that's right. shanghai would be on the coast of china, and this -- and then nanking is further inland. and the city is right in the -- like situated right at the bend of where the river courses, you know, to the north and then turns to flow towards the coast. so when the japanese swept towards nanking, they had -- all they had to do was encircle it from three other directions, because the river itself formed

a natural barrier. >> have you been to nanking? >> absolutely. >> how many times? >> actually, in the summer of 1995 i was there for -- you know for several weeks, actually. just one time. >> and what's your personal connection to nanking? >> well, my father was born in that area. and my family actually -- my grandparents used to live in nanking. they were almost separated forever shortly before the massacre itself. >> can you remember the first time you heard of the rape of nanking? >> yeah, i was a little girl. i don't remember exactly how old i was, but i must have been in grade school at the time. my parents were professors at the university of illinois, and they were telling me about the chinese for the nanking massacre. they said that the killing had been so intns -- intense in

nanking that the river, the river literally ran red with blood for days. and they said that people were being hacked to pieces, and at the time, this was -- this was very hard for me to visualize and i really wanted to learn more about it. so i went to the local library to see if i could find anything about it, and there wasn't a single book in english on it. i couldn't find anything. >> what did you do next? >> well, i think as a child i didn't think about it for another 20 years. the rape of nanking didn't intrude on my life until -- until i was married and i was living in santa barbara. and a filmmaker friend of mine told me that he had two friends who had heard that people wer were -- had been filming a

documentary on the rape of nanking, but that they had problems securing funding i think for distribution because of japanese influence in this country that's what piqued my interest again. i located the filmmakers and talked to them and one of them, nancy tong who fro deuced the documentary in the name of the pemerer told -- emperor told me that this was chinese activism on this event and if i was interested i should contact this particular organization, called the alliance for the preservation of the truth of world war ii. as it turns out, this particular organization was hosting a conference on the rape of nanking in december 1994. so since i was in santa barbara and the conference was to be held in kuper tino, i just drove up and attended the event. now, what i wasn't prepared for was the fact that they had put

poster-sided -- poster-sized pictures of some of the atrocities and i was seeing these pictures for the very first time. and i was -- i remember i felt sick to my stomach and i mean, i really -- i thought at one point that i would have to go home because i was so ill. you know? and i resolved to do something. i thought, this was so bad and yet no one had still written a book aabout it. so i figured it was time to take initiative. >> who is this woman up here? >> lee show-wing. >> is she alive? >> yes, she is. >> and what's the story? >> well, back in 1937, she was a teenage -- a wife of a technician who had fled from the city of nanking on top of a train and she was left behind in the city.

and she ended up fighting off three soldiers who tried to rape her. they stabbed her more than 30 times. >> where does she live now? >> in nanking. >> did you talk to her? >> yes, i did. >> how long? >> i spoke to her for several hours, and i felt like a time traveler because i saw this picture of her when she was still a teenager. and when i met her face to face, she was almost 80 years old. >> what does she look like now? >> well, she's still a very -- she's a very nicety woman. she's very strong. one of the strongest women i have ever met. she's -- well, she has so many wrinkles now that they have covered up the scars, but when she was younger, the scars on her face were horrible. >> again, she was stabbed 37 times with bayonets? >> that's correct. >> can you remember anything else about the story? where was she at the time she

was stabbed? >> she was hiding in the international safety zone which was a neutral zone organized by the foreigners of nanking to protect them from the japanese. and we'll probably talk more about that later. but at the time, a soldier had his eye on her. when he went down into the basement where she was hiding, he tried to rape her, but she resolved to fight to the death to prevent from being raped. so luckily she was bigger than he was, so that when he lunged -- i guess when he came for her, she like ripped his bayonet from the sheath and she threw i guess her back against the wall and she just started grappling with him. she ended up using him as a human shield against the two other soldiers who were trying to stab her and protect, you know, him, but she was using him as a shield to prevent from getting slashed up. >> how did she survive? >> well, she survived just

barely. one bayonet stabbed her right in the stomach and she eventually lost her baby. but she fainted and she was almost buried aliveably her family who didn't realize she was still alive. but someone noticed the bubbles of blood frothing from her mouth and they rushed her to the hospital where the american doctor, robert wilson, saved her life. >> now, she's now 80 some years old. when you talk to her, how many times did somebody else ask her about this over the years? >> oh, i think other reporters had talked with her. i'm not really sure. >> you talk about your dad being born near there. what about your grandparents? have well, my mother's parents were in nanking in 1937. i mean, my grandfather actually was in the city as the japanese were bombing it. and there's just an incredible

story of how they were almost separated forever during the chaos that followed the mass evacuations. >> what happened after that? i mean, i know -- i read the story, but tell us more about it. >> ok. you see, when the fighting shanghai escalated, it just became clear to my grandfather that his wife, who was a young woman in her 20's wasn't really safe. he didn't want her in the city where the japanese were bombar bombarding schools and hospital so he sent her to the home village. and when he went back to village -- went back to is visit her in the village, but then he didn't realize that the entire capital was moving inland. and that his particular unit w was -- they were leaving. they were going to leave town and he had to get word to my

grandmother to join him in another city so that they could leave that whole region. and they were to meet in woo-hoo because i think some of the railroad tracks to nanking had already been bombed. so as he waited for her, you know, she didn't show up. he waited for four days and he didn't know that it was just taking a long time because the -- i mean, the railroads had been bombed out and everyone was trying to get on a -- everyone was trying to get out of there. he waited and waited and eventually it got to be -- it got to the point where he really had to make a choice. he would either leave the city and leave woo-hoo and maybe never see his wife again. or he could wait for his wife and his daughter and then meet up with them, but miss the boat

out of the region, knowing that that area would be overrun by japanese soldiers. and he was so desperate right when he turned to leave, he screamed out her name. he screamed it out, and one last sampon it happens that my grandmother was in there and she stuck her head out and yelled back. it was because of that fateful cry that they were reunited. otherwise, my mother would never have been born and they would have never seen each other again. >> when did they leave china? >> they didn't leave china until shortly before the 1949 communist revolution. so that would have been some time in the 1940's. >> are they alive? >> unfortunately, both have passed away. my grandfather lived up to be 94 years old and he passed away in 1993 and my grandmother died

this last summer. very unfortunate she didn't get to see the publication of this book. >> did you talk to both of them about the material in this book? >> yes. actually, my grandfather because he was a poet and a journalist and a book author, he had written about some of this in his autobiography. but i had a chance to interview my grandmother as well and she provided more details before she died. >> where did you grow up? >> i grew up in illinois, which is where my parents were professors. >> how long did you live there? >> almost exactly 20 years. i moved there -- my father was offered a position when i was about 1. went to the university there and left i think at age 21. >> are they still there? >> yes, they are. >> and where did you move after you left exam plain, urban that? >> i worked for the associated press and then i went to the johns hopkins university writings seminars program where i received my master's degri.

-- degree. then i got married and moved. >> where do you live now? >> in sunny veil, california which is the heart of the silicone valley. >> you say in the book that the japanese have never apologized for this. >> that's correct. never officially apologized. >> why? >> well, i think because there's really no reason for them to do unless they were pressured to do so. >> why hasn't somebody pressured them to do so? you compare it with what the germans have done. >> i think maybe demographics have something to do with it. some of this activism behind the events is fairly new. but i would say the cold war has a large role in the silence of the japanese and the chinese and the americans on this issue. after the communist revolution, neither i think the p.r.c. or the r.o.c. wanted to pressure japan to pay reparations and to

apologize because both of them needed japan as an ally against each other. they needed japan for economic and political reasons and the united states also sought out japan as its ally as well against the forces of communism in asia. >> back in 1937, how many people lived in nanking? >> before the bombings, before some of the evacuations about a million people. >> and what was the relationship between china and japan back then? what was going on in the world and what was their relationship? >> back in 1937? oh, things by that point had been tense. in the summer of 1937, japan h had -- had attacked shanghai. i mean, this -- they had -- war had already broken out. >> but what was the reason? >> well, it goes back a long way, but the japanese had actually for hundreds of years

ambitions in china. it's really -- it's not something that -- it was not something that just started in 1937. it was -- there's a long history of animosity here. >> what's the reason? >> reason for -- >> the animosity? >> well, again, you know, i don't know if we have enough time to go into this, but there had already been, you know, war between -- there was a first sino japanese war, and there had been already numerous attempts by the japanese to carve up parts of china. they had already seized manchuria by the 1930's. >> what was it and what is it about -- what was it the japanese character that led to this kind of slaughtering? i mean, what did you find in this process? >> see, it's complicated. another historian said that

trying to peer into the japanese mind was like trying to stare down a black hole. it is very, very difficult, often to find out the motives for this. i would say though that if you're looking at the soldiers themselves, you'll find that many of them had been so brutalized before the massacre that i think that the -- that the nanking massacre was an episode in which just much of the pent-up frustration that they had experienced had exploded. >> so the japanese -- >> the japanese soldier was systematically hazed for years before nanking. i mean, he was -- you have to imagine just how -- how intense the japanese military experience really was. he had to endure getting slapped

around by japanese officers. i mean, there were accounts of japanese soldiers being forced to wash their underwear. they were treated almost as subhuman within their own army and it's often been suggested that those who have the least power can become the most sadistic when they do gain some chance to unleash the frustration that was bottled inside. >> how much discussion have you had with japanese people about this event? >> oh, i had -- i had the opportunity to talk to a group of japanese students who are studying in san francisco, and they were absolutely shocked to find out what happened. i mean, they had been kept in the dark about this all their lives. they said that their -- their textbooks had contained only one line on the nanking massacre which i think was referred to as the manching incident.

i think one woman after i showed the photographers burst into tears. so it's clear that the -- many of the japanese people to this day don't really know what happened. i mean, the ignorance in japan on this event and on this other atrocities is appalling. i mean, i had talked with a college professor in japan, and he said that when he mentioned to his students -- remember, these are college students, that japan had been at war with the u.s., many of these students asked him which side won? so in other words, they're not being taught about this in the school and the ministry of decades censored this event and others from their textbooks. i mean, this has been the subject of 30-year lawsuit between the japanese government

and famous historians there. >> is there a chinese holocaust museum? >> there's a rape of nanking museum in nanking. it has a big number 300,000 inscribed on it, but that's about it. i met people in los angeles who are interested in building a chinese holocaust museum in this country. >> you say that the house of representatives got into this? >> well, actually that's something different that's the lipinski bill. >> i don't mean that they got into the holocaust museum, but the whole issue of the rape -- >> well, that's right. william lipinski, a democrat from illinois, has introduced a bill in congress that calls for the japanese to officially apologize to its world war ii victims and pay reparations. and the rape of nanking is only one aspect of the bill. he lists many other atrocities such as the korean comfort women

issue, the medical experimentation that the japanese had conducted including the vivisection without anesthesia on american and chinese prisoners of war. the bataan death march. there are so many other instances of war time atrocities that are mentioned in his bill, and it's -- i think they have more than 30 supporters right now in congress. >> what was the killing contest? you mentioned it earlier, how does it work? >> oh, the killing contest. well, there were two sublieutenants who wanted to see who could kill 100 chinese first. and the japanese media covered this avidly as if it was some kind of sporting event. and they -- when they reached the, you know, the 100 mark, i guess they had lost counts. ok, let's just up this to 150.

>> you have got the actual newspaper article? >> that's right. >> you can see the numbers 105 and 106. what is that? >> that's how close they were. they were running neck to neck. one had killed 105 people, another had lobbed off 106 head. >> that was actually published in the japanese newspaper? >> that's correct. this was something that the japanese people knew about at the time. >> who was conducting the contest? >> oh, these two -- >> i mean, who was challenging them and whose idea was it to do it? >> i'm not clear on the details of this, but this was not typical. this was what was happening through nanking. >> in nanking, the japanese turn murder into sport. note the smiles on the japanese ining the ground, and here's the photo right here. where do you find the photos? >> many were later collected by the nanking government for their war crimes tribunals against the japanese after the war.

but sometimes the japanese soldiers themselves took these pictures. when i talked with one of the survivors, he remembers as he stood, you know, on the edge of this pit watching all the japanese lop off heads and throw them to the side and, you know, one person was keeping count, keeping score and the other one was laughing and taking photographs. you know, there's an incredible story about how this one album of 16 photographs eventually made its way from photo shop to like -- to a toilet, you know, it was hidden for years until it ended up in the archives. >> a couple of the pictures in here are rough to look at. was it a tough decision to put them in the book? >> it was. it was. i was very concerned that some of these pictures would result in the book being banned from school libraries. but i had numerous discussions

of this with the people at harpercollins and with other historians and friends. and some people insisted that i put them in anyway uncensored because this was history, this was the truth. >> what's this photo over here? >> that's the photo of a woman who -- a rape victim who is being forced to pose next to a japanese soldier naked. they found these photos in the wallets of some of the japanese soldiers. they took them. sometimes the people in the local photo mat would make copies, because they knew how important they were. >> on the other page at the top, what's that photo? >> i still have problems looking at it. that's a woman who has been impaled after she has been raped. >> down here? and where did you find this? >> this again came from china. it was -- it came from the chinese archives.

>> and the photo above it? >> that's a picture of a woman who's been gang raped and she -- as you could see, she has been tied to the chair so that she could be raped whenever the soldiers were in the mood for it. and again, i mean, i have a hard time looking at these pictures. even now. >> what's the purpose of putting them in the book then? you decided in tend, what was -- the conversation like between you and the publisher? >> well, there were people in the publishing house who had problems looking at the pictures. in the end, we decided that it was important for people to see what they were capable of doing. s after the tough decision. -- it was a tough decision. i know i may well catch a lot of criticism for it, but i don't think that people will realize just how brutal the japanese were until they see these pictures. >> if i were a japanese sitting here and saw these, i would say

things like what's your proof that these were caused by a japanese soldier? >> all i can say is there are thousands of pages of primary source documents on this event and in four different languages that pretty much describe with words these very pictures. and many of these pictures, they're not -- they didn't all come from japan and china. many can be found in the united states n the missionary -- in the missionary collections. >> let me show you this picture right here and tell me what it is. >> the one to the right? >> the right up top. >> oh. >> the bayonet. >> the bayonetting. well, these are pictures of the japanese bayonetting victims, and they're doing it for practice. they're using live prisoners as practice. and as you could see, the chinese who's been blindfolded, i mean he has been stabbed

repeatedly. and this is happening even after he's dead. >> you they is just practice? >> just practice. >> below that this photograph? >> this is a photograph of several chinese victims being buried alive as japanese soldiers watch. >> and you also tell a story in there where they would bury some chinese victims up to their heads and then have german shepherds -- >> tear them apart. >> tear them apart. >> do you have any pictures of that? >> no. thank god. >> how did you find that out? >> well, that was -- that came out of -- you know, archival document, so it came out of descriptions which i found in china. i'm telling you, literally i had so many facts on these atrocities, i had -- i had to use a computer database for them in order to keep them, you know, in order. i mean, we had that much evidence on it. >> if we had -- when did you

start writing this book or when did you start compiling all the information? >> i started compiling the information probably in january or february 1995. >> and i noticed that as late as august -- almost the end of august you had something quoted in here from the japan times, and this book came out in december. how did -- how were you able to publish it that close? >> well, you see, we had to publish this right at the last minute because all of this activism, it's ongoing and we were really working down to the last minute on this book. it was a very tight schedule. >> and why is -- you mean, you were afraid you were going to lose the opportunity if you didn't get it published right away? >> it's a long story. harpercollins itself as you know has been through difficulty and they vulcanner ised -- canceled more than 100 book contracts. you know, there were some delays in the process. but that was ok because that

gave me opportunity to put in other information that should have gone in the book. i never thought for instance that i would end up finding the family of john robay, the nazi hero of nanking. you know, i located the diaries and located the family halfway through the project. so i mean, this was an ongoing process. >> you talk to his daughter? or granddaughter -- >> that's right. i mean, i've tracked down the family when i think the book was almost finished. so yes, revisions were made up to the last minute. >> who is john robay? >> john was the head of the natd si party in nanking, but he was also the head of the international safety zone committee in nanking which is the group about 20 foreigners who decided to create in nanking a 2 1/2 square mile area for the refugees during the massacre. they told the japanese that this

this area was off limits to them, and they had to feed the refugees and protect them from the japanese. >> you have a letter dated 8 june, 1938. it is called dear furor, -- dear fuhrer, signed john robay. >> right. that went to hitler. >> why? >> he was trying to stop the highest atrocities. he may have been a little naive but he really thought that perhaps the germans would pressure the japanese to stop the killing. so what he did was in 1938 when he went back to berlin, he brought with him a copy of john mcgee's film of the massacre and john mcgee was the -- was the episcopalian minister who took footage of some of the atrocities. actually, he's the gentleman right on the other page. >> which one? >> the picture that's a little

lower on the page. >> which one -- >> to the right. this gentleman. >> ok. fine. we'll get it here so people can see what he looks like. >> he shot scenes from the nanking hospital. and it was this film that was reproduced and, you know n shanghai. it was smuggled out of nanking an made several copies. john robay took one of the copies and he kept die ris of the massacre. he brought those along with him to berlin. and he sent a copy of the film to hitler. and he was hoping to make some kind of i guess change in german policy towards japan, but the net result of the -- of sending the film was a visit from the gestapo. and they came to his home, arrested him, interrogated him. for hours, and eventually they forced him to promise them that

he would never speak about the atrocities again. >> where is that film? >> that's a good question. well, john mcgee's film is available in the united states. i mean, several copies were made so they're in different archives and in different homes, but john mcgee -- sorry, john robay's copy, we don't know where it is because people have searched the german archives and they can't find it. to this day, they're not sure if hitler has seen it, but the family is convinced that he did. >> if you saw the john mcgee film, what would you say? would you see the atrocities? >> you would see people being led away by the japanese soldiers. you have to remember he couldn't just stick the camera up, you know, right in front of their faces, this had to be done secretly. so you could see some footage that is filmed through like maybe a crack in the door or a crack in the window. and you would see crowds of

chinese being taken away. the most gripping images come from the hospital where there were victims who had -- who had escaped being burned alive. people who had been slashed with bayonets. there's one picture where one woman's head is just about to fall off. it is really very grotesque. >> shira is who? >> that is a japanese veteran of the rape of nanking. and he still -- he's still alive and he's in japan right now. >> and you corresponded with him? >> that's correct. >> how did that work? how did you find him? >> well, i had to track him down and i think a journalist baruma was the one who gave me his address. i wrote a letter to him, i had it translated into japanese. and he responded almost

immediately and i had the letter translated back into english. he sent me a copy of his diaries and also answered every question i had posed to him. see, i was trying to understand the state of mind that he was in at the time. >> what did you learn from him? >> what i learned was that the japanese soldier really had to see the chinese as subhuman before they could kill them. i mean, he depicted the chinese in his diary as, you know, as like animals or as insects. >> right above that in the book you can put this into the context, a veteran officer named tominoga recalled vividly his own transformation from innocent youth to killing machine. i want to read what you have in here. where did you find that, by the way? >> that was in the secondary sources that came from a book.

>> he scooped water from a bucket with a dipper, then poured it over both sides of the blades. he swazed his sword, standing behind the prisoner, he ste did himself legs spread apart and cut off the man's head with a shout. the blood spurted up into two fountains and sprayed into the hole. the scene was so appalling i felt i couldn't breathe. if you were japanese, what would you want your own people to do about this? if they didn't know about it. >> well, i guess it would depend on the individual, but i don't know what they would think, but i think -- i personally think that they have a moral 1307b9 -- a moral responsibility to come to grips with this. japan as a nation cannot move forward until they meet this squarely in the face. >> well, even according to your testimony, they don't know about. >> i some of them don't know about it, but there are those who do. and i remember talking to some

japanese who when they hear it, they'll deny it. they don't want to believe it. so it's very hard, very hard to know exactly how they're going to react, even when the facts are thrust into their face. >> will your book be published in japan? >> i'm not really optimistic that it will be, but perhaps some kind of small, radical publisher will take a risk and put it out. >> from what you know, what would happen if the book tried to be sold over in japan? >> i don't know, but i'll tell you that the one that's come out to apologize for his role in the massacre, he's faced countless death threats and many of the journalists who have written about this in japan have either been ostracized -- i mean, when you see them photographed, they have sunglasses on because, you know, they've -- they've run

into these kinds of threat's the. don't forget the -- some japanese ring wingers shot i think the mayor of nagasaki in the back simply because he said that he thought hirohito had some responsibility for the war. >> that was in 1989. >> that's right. so we have a country that is living in denial. and i'll be honest with you, i am completely appalled that more people don't know about this atrocity, because if you look -- i mean, 300,000 people died in nanking, and 300,000 people might not seem like a huge number until you place it in the context of world war ii history. 300,000 deaths is greater than the deaths from hiroshima and nagasaki combined. it's also greater than the combined civilian deaths of several european countries for

the entire duration of world war ii. so in other words, if you add up the number of civilians who died in england, france and belgium, that's -- that still would not be as many people who died in nanking which is one chinese city in six to eight weeks. in the end, more than 19 million chinese people perished. 19 million people were killed. >> what do you want to do with this? >> well, i want the whole world to know what happened. i want the entire world to know the truth. >> and how far are you willing to take it? >> well, i think i've -- just writing the book is the -- was the biggest step really for me. i think i have done my part in just laying down the facts for people to read. >> and also in the book, you

have some americans. one in particular is robert wilson. who was he? >> robert wilson is -- was a missionary doctor and he was the only surgeon in nanking during the great massacre. >> and what role did he play? >> well, he was the person who ended up having to stitch up the survivors who came, you know, straggling into the hospital from bayonet wounds, burn wounds and he was working night and d day. it's incredible what he was able to do under those conditions. >> what was the zone? >> the international safety zone it was 2 1/2 square miles in the middle of the city, which the foreigners had marked off with red flags and it was an area

that they claimed that the japanese were not permitted to enter. they just harbored the chinese there. thousands of chinese were pouring into the zone every day. many with only the clothes on their backs and just begging for a place to sit down so that they could be safe from -- from the japanese. >> how many people were inside that zone? >> hundreds of thousands. one actually said 300,000. one of the zone members said 300,000 were in the zone. >> you tell a story about how chinese soldiers would come in and then the japanese would come in. how did they find them, when they took off their uniforms and put on civilian clothes. how did they find them? >> well, they searched their hands to see if they had any calluses from handling guns. they also even searched their backs to see if there were any back pack marks. even their feet for signs of marching. that way they were able to find out who had been former chinese

soldiers, and they systematically marched them out and shot them. >> was there a trial of any kind of a -- after the war was over? >> yes. well, the biggest one was the tokyo war crimes trial or the formal name is the international military tribunal for the far east. and that was held in japan, and it resulted in some of the class a war criminals being hanged by the end of the -- >> was there everything that happened in world war ii happened at this trial? i mean, did it cover everything? >> yes, it was -- they were trying to cover everything. but they also had a local trial too for nanking. there was a nanking tribunal as well. >> and how long did that go on? >> it went on for several months. it was mainly -- these were held immediately after the war. >> that was held in nanking? >> yes. of course, the international tribunal for the far east lasted

considerably longer. i mean, went on for years. >> how much publicity was there for this event, either in nanking or in japan? >> well, there was considerable publicity. i think it was the longest war crimes trial in history and they had hundreds of reporters there. in nanking it was well publicized i'm sure throughout china. >> you tell a story in the beginning of the book about commodore matthew perry and how the americans opened up japan to theout side world. how did that work? >> oh, well, what perry decided to do when the japanese ignored requests from the american government to open up their ports of trade, he marched up -- he studied japanese history carefully. and then he decided that the best way to deal with them was to shock them into submission. so he -- he kind of just came -- he just went right up with, you

know, to one of the ports and he strode into the capital with some very aggressive looking men and it just terrified the japanese at the time. i mean, the first time they had ever even seen steam power. one historian said it would be -- you know, to really understand the pressure the japanese were under, it would be like an announcement maybe on cnn that we have some weird looking aircraft headed towards earth. that was how shocked they were at the time. >> and this is in july of 1853. >> yes. >> was that the first time japan had ever seen an american? >> probably the first time many had ever seen an american. >> what happened to the country after that? >> well, then they decided to modernize and they decided that they would appease the barbarians but they would try to learn from them, because it was obvious that they were lagging

in technology. they had to learn to build up their military. >> what happened next to the country? >> well, the country did precisely that and there was the maj -- there was the major restoration and the entire country became nationalistic and in tend, they built up a very strong military and they began to get some of the respect that they had craved actually from the west. >> does the rape of nanking or the massacre at13 have any impact on the relationship today between china and japan? did you talk to folks about that when you went over there? >> it's very interesting that you ask me that, because many of the p.r.c. officials that i've met that are very sympathetic to the history of the rape at nanking, many may have had relatives who died during the

war but at the same time i think they are reluctant to endanger their trade relations with japan and also the political and diplomatic relations so the p.r.c. has actually as i may have mentioned before expelled activists who have tried to promote this event actually, promote the history of the rape of nanking. >> in the back of your book you say there are a number of lessons. another lesson to be glean fred nanking the role of power in genocide. those who have studied the patterns of large scale killing have noted the concentration of power in government is lethal and only a sense of absolute unchecked power can make atrocities like the rape of nanking possible. what would you say then about today's chinese concentration of power in that government? the p.r.c. today is still a

totalitarian regime and it's, you know, if you have these kinds of conditions in place, an atrocity like the rape of nanking can happen again. >> what did they think when you went to china in 1995? did the officials know what you were doing there? >> in 1995? no they didn't. and actually i was a little concerned when i went back because i had just writ eddie bernice johnson the book "the thread of the silk worm" which is an unauthorized biography of the father of the red chinese missile program, i figured that there was a good chance that i, myself, would be interrogated and expelled from the country. >> did they know who you were? >> the people in nanking didn't. all they knew was that i was a scholar who was out there seeking information. >> you said you're married. >> yes. >> do you have children? >> not yet.

>> what does your husband do? >> he is an electrical engineer and works in silicon valley and has been incredibley supportive of this project and my career. >> you said you live in sunnyvale right in silicon valley. >> correct. >> it seems like there is somebody in this book living in sunnyvale. >> it turned out that there was a paramedic, you know, in nanking, who now lives in sunnyvale. i mean, this is somebody who when he lived in nanking in 1937 he was a little boy and had volunteered to help the chinese army and was working as a paramedic at the time. sheer coincidence. >> in the book you talk about in the beginning of the rape of nanking an incident that 57,000 people were killed. >> oh, yes. that must be the mountain massacre. that is correct. >> what was that? >> well, what they had done was they had kept these tens of

thousands of civilians in these camps and then eventually after keeping them dehydrated and starved, they just went out and started machine gunning them, killing them. >> was that the most that ever died at one time? >> i think it may have been. >> what's your sense of what would lead a human being to do this kind of thing? >> i think that people are much more capable of committing these atrocities than we would think and if you're conditioned to believe that what you're doing is the right thing, if somehow, if the act of murder becomes like a holy one then it would be easy, i think, to convince people that not only what you're doing is wrong, but that it is sanctioned by god and that it is the only right thing you can do. >> have you talked at all about

what happened in rwanda? >> actually in this book it mentions rwanda just briefly, but i would say what i was looking -- when i was looking at the news accounts i felt like i was reviewing my old archival documents again. the similarities were haunting. stories about women who had been raped by soldiers and now they're going to carry an enemy soldier's baby and these dilemmas that were so painful to me when reading them because i kept seeing the same story over and over again. >> you tell a story in here of a woman who to this day won't give her real name or was raped and i can't remember exactly what it was but you alluded to it. what was it that some of the rapes that happened, eventually children were born? >> yes. there were many half japanese half chinese children born as a result of the rape and one of the missionaries at the time, louis smith, said that there

were thousands of these children being smothered to death or drowned, because very few women really wanted -- i mean, they couldn't love these children. but you have to understand that they had -- it must have been a terrible choice for these women to make. i mean, killing your own baby or raising a child that you could never love and i'm sure a lot of women couldn't make that choice, so at the same time there were thousands of women committing suicide in the city. there were uncounted women throwing themselves into the river to drown. >> how interested have you found americans in this story? >> i am surprised at the response. it's overwhelming. it seems to me that almost everyone i've talked with is interested and they're shocked. they don't know about this. >> why don't wean about it in the united states? >> well, i assume -- i wonder if it's maybe demographics, you know, it's really stunning to me

that -- i really don't know the answer. maybe lack of interest, maybe there weren't enough chinese-japanese experts, you please be, immediately after the war. but, you know, the united states government, itself, was engaged in a, you know, in the conspiracy with the japanese to cover up some of their own, you know, some of their own dealings, so there are many political reasons why something like this wouldn't be told. >> what was that moment in here that you talked about when f.d.r. had how much, 30 seconds of film or 30 minutes of film? >> maybe 30 feet of film. >> right. >> yes. the -- well, as you know, the japanese had bombed the u.s.s. penai and some americans died as a result of this bombing. and the japanese later on tried to excuse the bombing by saying, well, it was a cloudy day or we

couldn't really see clearly that this was an american ship but -- >> what was the penai by the way? >> it was a gun boat. >> it was bombed december 12, 1937? >> yes. and, you know, there were two news reel men aboard and one of them -- both of them took footage of the japanese swooping down almost to deck level to shoot at the passengers. and it's clear from anyone who looks at the footage that the japanese could see the flags that were painted on the deck or the -- or flying overhead. and the president specifically requested that this footage be removed before it was shown in american theaters. >> why? >> well, we could only speculate on the reasons why. it's probably because they didn't want to jeopardize any kind of settlement that they wanted to make with japan. >> we're out of time.

this is our guest book jacket "the rape of nanking" and our guest has been iris chan >> would be fair to say there has been some level of more acceptance when you look at recent scandals and correct me if my thesis here is wrong, that it is the ones that are an attach not just with personal lives or sexual scandals but then there is they're some of the wrongdoing that eventually takes people out of office?

>> david vitter, who frequented the d.c. madam's, the senator from louisiana won his last election in a landslide victory. so it is possible right now because americans have gotten more and more used to sex scandals involving their politicians. ultimately we argue that is a good thing because it will enable us to stop eventually talking and obsessing about the sex lives of residents and politicians and start focusing on what really matters. >> what makes it so bad is not just the positives in washington d.c.. when you have somebody that is that hypocritical getting caught up in a sexual escapade, it just makes it even worse. >> well, instead of talking about this conceptually before we