Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre

Testimony of Mr. AAccording to Mr. A’s recollection as recounted in “Nanking 1937,” he made printsfrom two rolls of film, which a Japanese military man had brought to the store, “under thesunlight around January 1938” when electrical power was yet to be restored in Nanking.He then produced another set of prints in the darkroom. Printing in the darkroom was,however, impossible if the power was not restored. As for the printing under the sunlight,it is practically impossible as well. This mode of printing is an atypical one that is notused for producing prints with multiple tones. The final product was of low quality whichthe customer—a Japanese military man—was unlikely to accept with satisfaction.Suppose these photographs were the ones Mr. A produced for his own—not for thecustomer. A glimpse at these 16 photographs—still images captured from “Nanking1937”—may impress the viewers with their varying sizes. One may consider thepossibility that they have been cropped in multiple ways. But except for the lower part ofseveral of them, all the photographs have distinct edges produced by the easel mask, whichbinds the negative film to the print paper. Even if he had made contact-sheet images orenlarged prints in the darkroom, it would have been highly unlikely for him to use multipleeasel masks of varying sizes in order to make prints out of a single negative. He wouldnot have undertaken such complicated processing work unless he purposely intended tomake those prints appear to be from multiple types of negative films. But, of course, suchan effect would produce a result that would contradict his original story.There were several types of films in use about the time of the Nanking campaign.Among them were 35-milimeter film with pin-feed holes for Leica cameras, 120 film that isstill in use for camera types such as the Zenza Bronica, preferred by professionals, and 127film, which was widely used then but is rarely used today. Despite the availability ofthese multiple film types, film-frame size should have been uniform within a single film.For example, suppose someone took photographs with 120 film. Although the print sizecould vary, such as 6×9, 6×6, or 4.5×6 centimeters, if using a single camera, one had topredetermine the size before loading the film. Specifically, one had to either place aframe inside the camera or close the built-in flap to narrow the screen to produce4.5×6-centimeter prints. Moreover,, choosing another print size would be impossible oncethe film was loaded in the camera. It was not impossible to have smaller images printedby hiding half of the camera lens. But this method of filming would have made two typesof 6×3-centimeter prints available.130