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The Nanking Massacre and Other Japanese Atrocities, 1931-1945
INTRODUCTION to UNIT 8
Rescuers and Upstanders
As in the Holocaust, many individuals during the Nanjing Massacre tried to the best of their ability
to help those in desperate need of medical care, protection, and sanctuary. At times their lives would be
endangered, and in several cases this rescue work would cost them their lives. The common thread of these
altruistic individuals is a comment by all: “You would have done the same thing.”
One of the most famous of those individuals who would defy the Japanese Imperial Army was John
Rabe, a German diplomat who established the International Safety Zone in Nanjing. He explained his reasons
thus: “There is a question of morality here. I cannot bring myself for now to betray the trust these people
have put in me, and it is touching to see how they believe in me.”
Minnie Vautrin, another upstander, a dean at Jinling (Ginling) University recounted the horrors of the
war in her diary in 1937:
There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today. Thirty girls were taken
from language school last night, and today I have heard scores of heartbreaking stories of girls who
were taken from their homes last night—one of the girls was but twelve years old. Food, bedding, and
money have been taken from people. … I suspect every house in the city has been opened, again and
yet again, and robbed. Tonight a truck passed in which there were eight or ten girls, and as it passed
they called out “Giu ming! Giu ming!”—save our lives. The occasional shots that we hear out on the hills
or on the street, make us realize the sad fate of some man—very probably not a soldier.
Another rescuer, Reverend John Magee, fi lmed the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army
at peril of his own life, realizing that these atrocities had to be documented. Magee had the 16mm fi lm
smuggled out of China so that the world would know what was happening in Nanjing.
In addition to the Westerners in the Nanking International Safety Zone, a number of Chinese rescued
many of those in danger. For example, Tsen Shuifang, an administrator at Jinling University and a nurse,
worked with Dean Vautrin protecting and saving refugees. Tsen Shuifang was only one of many Chinese
who rescued their fellow citizens.
These rescuers and upstanders remind us of the importance of standing up for others. The true test
of a society is the ability to protect the rights of the smallest minority and teach each generation to have
compassion, empathy, tolerance, and understanding for all human beings.
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