Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre

Photo 23 Photo 24Photo 25As for Photo 23, RBS attaches a caption which reads, “Twelve adult women andeight girls who were gang-raped by the Japanese army men and were subsequentlymurdered with the bellies slit at Wuxiang prefecture in the Shanxi Province.” HondaKatsuichi also described this picture as a scene of women gang-raped and murdered enmasse in his Chūgoku no tabi, but credited it as the one provided by the city of Nanking.Then, RON-YY, in reference to this image, accused that “[T]housands of women werekilled after being raped or gang-raped. Some of them were young children.”WMRB captions Photo 25 as the scene of carnage after the Japanese armymachine-gunned civilians. QINHUA describes the same photograph as an image ofChinese nationals whom the Japanese troops massacred in a group. RON-YY, whichcredits Marion Fitch as its contributor, only stated, “The Japanese victory claimedhundreds of thousands of lives” in reference to the same photo.Had the Japanese indeed committed these cases of group massacre, theseincidents could not have escaped the attention of the Western journalists in Nanking.Subsequently, there should have sensationalized reporting in the newspapers. However,no contemporary Western media sources covered these stories or printed thesephotographs.4. Images of Violence and RapeOne may classify photographic images suggestive of rape or violence in RBSand WMRB into two groups. The first group, Photos 26 through 28, shows patients in ahospital setting while the second group, Photo 29-34, resembles pornography.96