Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre

the quote above makes it clear that such executions were not conducted in such a waythat ordinary people would be able to observe them.One may counter this reasoning and say that the spectators were Japanesenationals connected with the military, and that one of them could have taken thesephotographs. One could, however, rule out this possibility for several reasons.Photo 12: “Cilu” [Stabbing to death]. This photograph was first published in WMRB.First, the spectators’ outfits are for the summer and not for the winter, when theJapanese entered Nanking. Since civilians resumed their normal activity within abouttwo months after the fall of the city on December 13, 1937, an execution as shown inthese photographs was highly unlikely to take place in Nanking in the summer of 1938.Furthermore, most Japanese troops had already left the city by then to participate in othermilitary campaigns.RON-YY, on p. 141, identified Photo B as one of the pictures which W. A.Farmer sent to the Look magazine of the United States, and that they were printed for thefirst time in the November 22, 1938, issue of the Look. Regarding their origin, Lookexplained that a Japanese military man, who had taken these photos, sent theundeveloped film to a Japanese developer in Shanghai, where a Chinese employee madeextra prints.But Farmer said something more in his letter to Look magazine. Farmer said79