I think that this was one of my better key terms because it was clear, concise and straight to the point. I gave a good hook to introduce Videla and proceeded to tell about what he did and his importance in the book. I also made a very good comparison to Robespierre, which allowed the reader to get a grasp on what kind of a person Videla was. Finally I also did a very good job of incorporating quotes, giving them significance, and using them as evidence throughout the key term.

On this key term I did an excellent job of summarizing the events that occurred during the Rape of Nanking. I also put in a lot of detail in every paragraph to really show what was going on in Nanking. Another good thing that I did was that I used a lot of quotes to back up my writing, and they also gave even more evidence to what I was trying to say. In this key term what is missing is the significance of the Rape of Nanking. I give a lot of facts but don't sum up the importance of the event.

The Rape of Nanking

            “If one event can be held up as an example of the unmitigated evil lying just below the surface of unbridled military adventurism, that moment is the Rape of Nanking.” (4) This is how Iris Chang sums up the Rape of Nanking. As mentioned above the Japanese marched toward Nanking after taking the city of Shanghai. They took the city on December 13, 1937, and that’s when the Rape of Nanking began.

            The entire massacre could have been avoided had General Matsui not have become sick right as the Japanese took the city. Matsui was completely against murdering and raping all of the inhabitants of a conquered city. So when Matsui became sick Prince Asaka was put in charge did nothing to stop the Rape.

            The first thing that happened when the Japanese took the city was that they began rounding up all Chinese soldiers and began mass executing them. The Japanese found it surprisingly easy to kill off all the Chinese soldiers even though they were still greatly outnumbered because the Chinese didn’t fight back. “Probably the single largest mass execution of prisoners of war during the Rape of Nanking took place near Mufu Mountain…an estimated fifty-seven thousand civilians and former soldiers were executed.”(44) The Japanese started off beheading the Chinese soldiers but then ended up mowing the rest of them down with machine guns.

            After the majority of the Chinese soldiers had either retreated out of Nanking or had been executed the Japanese turned their focus to murdering and raping the civilians of Nanking. The Japanese devised all sorts of games and contests to make killing the civilians more fun and entertaining for themselves. One way they would do that was by having killing contests. One contest in particular was between two soldiers who raced to see who could kill a hundred civilians the fastest. When they couldn’t figure out who won they decided to raise the amount to 150 civilians. A Chinese civilian named Tang survived another killing contest. “In each team, one soldier beheaded prisoners with a sword while others picked up heads and tossed them aside in a pile.”(85) Tang was able to survive the contest by faking his death.

            Japanese soldiers also found many ways to torture Chinese civilians. One way was by live burials where they would make a first group of captives dig a grave, make the second group bury them, then make the third group bury the second. “Some victims were partially buried to their chests or necks so they would endure further agony, such as being hacked to pieces by swords or run over by horses and tanks.” (87) Another form of torture was mutilation, where Japanese soldiers would dismember civilians and even gouge out their eyes and cut off their noses. Civilians were also frozen, and attacked by dogs. Finally, Japanese would also burn Chinese citizens alive by pouring gasoline all over them and then setting them on fire by either igniting them or by shooting at them with their machine guns.

            The Rape of Nanking is the second largest instance of wartime rape behind the rape of Bengali women by Pakistani soldiers in 1971. It is estimated that as many as eighty thousand women were raped during the Rape of Nanking. To make matters worse many of the rape victims that survived were impregnated with Japanese babies that often forced the mother to either kill the baby or commit suicide because she could never truly love and take care of the child.

            The Japanese didn’t care how old or of what background the women they raped came from. “The Japanese raped Nanking women from all classes: farm wives, students, teachers…even Buddhist nuns, some of whom were gang raped to death.”(90) The Japanese not only raped the Chinese for pleasure and to humiliate them but they also raped them because they thought that it would make them stronger in battle. An example of how the Japanese raped all Chinese women no matter how young or old, “Little girls were raped so brutally that some could not walk for weeks afterward…After gang rape, Japanese soldiers sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the fetuses for amusement.” (91)

            Although most women once caught, could do nothing to stop their rapists many women were able to elude being raped. Many were able to get to the Nanking safety Zone, where they were offered some sort of protection from their rapists. Others faked being sick or even faked being men. “Others feigned sickness, such as the woman who told Japanese soldiers she had given birth to a dead child four days before.” (96)
           The main question from reading about the Rape of Nanking was, are some people born evil? Were the Japanese who raped and killed all these people evil? I can relate this to our discussions in class about Hitler and the Nazis, because in both instances, the Japanese and the Nazis seemed to want to completely humiliate and destroy a certain people,and had no remorse while doing so. The difference between the Japanese and the Nazis is that the Nazis were hunted down relentlessly after the war, and Germany has apologized for it did. On the Other hand, the Japanese have tried to cover up the incident for the past seventy years, many of them denying that it happened at all. Although some Japanese were tried and put in prison or executed, the majority of the rapists and murders went home and lived their lives as if they had done nothing wrong. So, the Rape of Nanking is an event in history that is remembered not only for all of the terrible rapes and murders of innocent Chinese citizens, but for the Japanese's attempts to cover up one of the most gruesome and evil events in human history.