Nota Bene News from the Yale Library

Addenda to Volume X, Number 3 (Fall 1996)

Missionaries Record Historic Events

"American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanjing Massacre," the current Yale Divinity Library exhibit, includes documentation from the papers of nine American missionaries who remained in Nanjing throughout the Massacre. By some estimates, the Japanese army killed more than 300,000 Chinese and raped nearly 80,000 women in the city of Nanjing between December 13, 1937 and the end of March, 1938. The missionaries' letters, diaries, reports, and photographs provide graphic evidence of a horrific frenzy of beheading, bayoneting, burying alive, burning, gang-raping, and other atrocities. This evidence is of particular interest because the Japanese government has refused to officially recognize that these atrocities took place, nor does any mention of the Nanjing Massacre appear in Japanese school textbooks.

When Nanjing fell to the Japanese, there were twenty-seven Westerners remaining in the city; of these fifteen were Americans, primarily missionaries from the Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches. The missionaries worked together with others, including the German businessman John Rabe, to establish the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone shortly before the capture of Nanjing by the Japanese. Once the Massacre set in, the Safety Zone became the only place that offered some resemblance of sanctuary; more than 200,000 people crowded into the Zone, an area about one-eighth of the city. The missionaries, Rabe, and a few other Westerners risked their lives daily in order to protect thousands of Chinese from being murdered and thousands of women from being raped by the Japanese army.

The Divinity Library recently received a photocopy of the extensive diary of John Rabe. This diary came to light only a few months ago when Rabe's granddaughter was tracked down by a researcher who had come across Rabe's name in the missionary accounts held at the Divinity Library. Rabe's diary is of particular interest because he was a German and a member of the Nazi Party. Germany was strengthening its alliance with Japan during this time period and it was of no possible personal gain to Rabe for him to expose the Japanese atrocities. When he went back to Germany in February 1938 and tried to bring the Japanese activities to the attention of the German government, his efforts were rebuffed and his career suffered significantly. Since certain Japanese officials have sought to characterize American accounts of the Nanjing massacre as fabrications designed to discredit the Japanese, it is of note that a German ally's accounts clearly corroborate those of the Americans.

The Divinity Library exhibit on the Nanjing Massacre will be up through January 31. On Friday, January 31, at 4:00 p.m. Professor Beatrice Bartlett of Yale's History department will present a lecture on the Nanjing Massacre in Marquand Chapel. A reception in the Library's Day Missions Reading Room will follow.

Martha Smalley
Nota Bene Addenda, Fall 1996

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Last Revision: January 10, 2003