南京大屠杀The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World WarII
作者从三个方面解读了“南京大屠杀”的真相。一是听取了当年亲历事件的日本人的证言；二是记录作为大屠杀受害者和幸存者的中国人的回忆；三是挖掘出当时置身“国际安全区”的外国人的记录。张纯如首次发现的《拉贝日记》，已成为记述“南京大屠杀”的著名历史档案。
纯如走了，但她发现的《拉贝日记》、《魏特琳日记》，与《南京暴行》一道，成为向世界人民昭示侵华日军南京暴行的铁证。
张纯如在１９９７年以英文写成《南京大屠杀》，２００５年译成中文版出版，１０年后其日文版终于出版，这是一个“对纯如在天之灵的安慰”。
纯如最喜欢的座右铭是美国哲学家乔治·桑塔亚纳的名言：忘记历史的人将重蹈历史覆辙。“只有吸取历史教训，才能有未来的和平，”
以下是部分书摘：
导言
位历史学家估算，如果南京城死难者手拉手连在一起，其长度可以从南京延伸到杭州城，横跨的距离为两百公里。他们流出的鲜血重量达到1200吨，他们的试题可以装满2500节铁路车厢，把他们的尸体一个个堆砌在一起，可以和74层大楼相比高。
--吴志铿的估计。（圣何塞《麦哥里新闻》1988年1月号）
敲响的宣布死亡钟声——仅仅是中国的一个城市所敲响的，便超过了一些欧洲国家在整个战争时期所敲响的数字。（大不列颠失去了总共61000位公民，法国失去108000人，比利时市区101000人，荷兰也失去了242000人。）有的人仔细琢磨，飞机轰炸应该是做这种集体消灭事情上，最为可怕的工具；然而，即使是战争中最猛烈的空中袭击，也没有超过大屠杀给南京带来的灾难，在南京死亡的人数似乎比英国对德累斯顿轰炸以及随后到来的火海中丧生的人数更多。（当时国际上认可的数字是225000，但如今更为客观的统计数字认为，德累斯顿案例死亡60000人，伤残至少也有30000人。）确实，在南京死难的人⑥，无论我们采用最保守的数字260000人，还是最高的数字350000人，当想到南京的死难人数大大超过美军轰炸东京的死难者（估计为80000到120000人）、甚至超过超过1945年中在广岛和长崎两次敲响丧钟加起来的数量（估计分别为140，000与70，000人）
关于广岛及长崎原子弹爆炸的死亡人数，参见理查德罗德著《原子弹的制造》，第734、740页，罗德宣称，在1945年的原子弹爆炸中，大约有14万人死于广岛，7万人死于长崎。不仅如此，因为原子弹爆炸造成的疾病使死亡在继续，在五年后，广岛总共有20万人死亡，长崎有14万人死亡。值得注意的是，即使是在五年后两个城市的死亡人数之和，也少于对南京暴行中死难人数的最高估计。
一种答案都会引发一个新的问题，而且我现在也弄不明白，为什么这一罪行的受害人不曾呼喊着要求争议。也许他们确实呼喊过，那为什么他们的痛苦不曾被认可？事情很快便让我弄清楚了，沉默帘子的幕后操纵者是政治。中华人民共和国、“中华民国”甚至美国，都因为某些深深植入二战的原因，要对这一事件的被历史性忽略负责。在1949年中国的共产主义革命成功后，中华人民共和国没有，“中华民国”也没有，向日本要求战争赔偿（如同以色列要求德国那样），因为这两家政府竞相要求和日本贸易，并取得对方政治上的承认。而至于美国，面对苏联与中国大陆的共产主义威胁，为寻求其过去的敌人日本的友谊和忠诚，也不曾提起此事。于是乎，冷战的紧张态势，许可日本逃脱了许多猛烈的鉴定性检查，而日本战时的盟国们却被迫经受过。
除此之外，日本国内的高度压抑气氛，也不许可公开和学术性地，讨论南京大屠杀，进而获取对事件的认知。在日本，表述对中日战争的真实见解，会受到——也将继续受到——丢掉饭碗、甚至丢掉性命的威胁（1990年，日本的一名枪手，开枪打中了长崎市市长的胸部，只因为他说日本天皇裕仁应对第二次世界大战负一定的责任）。这种普遍觉察到的恐惧感，使得许多严谨的学者都不敢访问日本，去查阅档案，实施他们对此题目的研究；我在南京听说，中华人民共和国很少允许他们的学者去日本旅行，因为唯恐危害到学者们的人身安全。在这种环境下，日本岛国之外的人们，想要获得南京大屠杀原始档案资料，那是非常困难的。另外，许多参加过南京大屠杀的退伍老兵，也不愿意就他们的这份经历接受采访；虽然近年来也有少数人不怕受排斥，不怕死亡威胁，将他们的故事公诸于世。
第一章 走向大屠杀之路
世纪20年代，日本军队中年轻的激进分子就不断地论证军事扩张关系到国家的生死存亡问题。陆军中校桥本欣五郎在他那本《致青年人》的书中写道：
要想从人口过剩的压力下解脱出来，摆在日本面前的只有三条路……移民，打人国际市场，和领土扩张。第一扇门，即移民，已由于其它国家的反日移民政策而对我们关闭，第二扇门……由于关税壁垒和废除通商条约而正在关闭。当三扇门中的两扇门拒绝让日本通行时，日本应该怎么办？
第二章 六个星期滔天罪恶
东史郎实在不能理解中国人为什么不与敌人战斗到死。当他发现俘虏的人数超过捕捉者的人数的时候，他对中国人的鄙视加深了。
第三章 南京的陷落
四天失守之谜
一。空军被蒋带走了。
二。先进的通讯设备也被带走了。
三。军队不是来自同一地区，相互间语言沟通有困难。
四。这些士兵大多从未握过枪杆子。
五。中国士兵没有团结一致协同作战的观念。指挥官之间的表现不比士兵好一些，他们相互都不信任。
第四章 六周暴行纪实
在日军穿过南京城门的时候，那些但凡有点钱、有点权或有点先见之明的人早已不知逃到什么地方去了。大约原来人口的一半离开了这里：战前南京本地居民超过100万，但12月减到大约50万。然而，这个城市却充斥着成千上万的乡下人，他们离开乡下到城里来，是因为他们相信在城墙的保护下是安全的。那些在军队撤退后还留在城里的人实际上是最无能力保护他们自己的人：孩子，老人，以及那些太穷或身体太弱而无法安全逃出城去的人。
即使怀疑论者把太田的交待当作一纸谎言而不予理睬，人们也必须记住，就算没有他的估计，南京关于掩埋尸体的记录也提供了令人信服的证据——在大屠杀中死亡的总数至少在20万人。我在远东国际军事法庭的记录中发现的法庭证据材料（见下表）证实了孙的研究。把慈善机构估计的掩埋尸体的数字（后来孙的论文中提到）和由其他个人提供的数字（孙的论文没有提到）加在一起，法庭判断约26万人在南京大屠杀中被杀害。记住这一点是重要的，即远东国际军事法庭的数字并没有包括日本人掩埋的中国死亡者的数字，如果加上这个数字，那么死亡人数将达30万或40万之多。
南京日本大屠杀受难者人教估计
崇善堂................................................ 112，266
红十字会.............................................. 43，071
下关区.................................................26, 100
鲁甦先生的陈述.........................................57，400
于、张、杨先生的陈述...................................7，000或更多
吴先生的陈述...........................................2，000或更多
根据无名遇害者墓的记载................................ 3，000或更多
共计（约计）...........................................260，000
资料来源：远东国际军事法庭记录。法庭证据文件，第1702号文件，第134盒，1948年，第二次世界大战犯罪档案集，第14项，第238组档案，美国国家档案馆。
近年来其他学者支持孙宅巍的研究，并相信在南京大屠杀中的死亡总数可能超过30万人的理由。例如，南伊利诺伊大学名誉历史教授吴天成在他的论文“让全世界都了解南京大屠杀”中，估计南京陷落前的城市人口大约是63万，他承认这个数字远不是精确的，但可能相当接近实际数字。他准备了详细的有关南京人口编年史数字的研究资料，并对这些数字进行了仔细考察，然后他断定，在这场大屠杀中的死亡总数超过30万人——或者是34万人，其中19万人被集体屠杀，其余15万人分别遇害。
如果蒋介石不下达那个无意义的在紧要关头撤离南京的命令，而是坚持抗战到最后一个人去保卫这座城市，那么南京城的命运将会有所不同。对这种说法我们也必须再次小心慎重。正面的对抗肯定是不行的。日本人有更好的装备，受过更好的训练，他们早晚会打败中国的部队。但是一场长期持久的运用游击战术的斗争将挫败日军的士气，并激昂中国军队的斗志。即使没有别的作用，这种战略战术也将使更多的日军在与中国人的战斗中被消灭，而且只有勇猛的抵抗才能打掉他们对中国士兵的狂妄骄横之气。
第五章 南京安全区
在此期间，美国人和欧洲人的英勇行动是如此之多（他们的日记长达数千页），以至于在这里无法叔述他们的所有事迹。基于这个原因，在记述整个安全区委员会的功绩之前，我决定先专门谈谈3个人的活动——一名德国商人，一名美国外科医生及一名美国传教士。从表面上看来，他们实在是三种截然不同的人。
也许在南京暴行这段历史中脱颖而出而又最富吸引力的人物就是德国商人约翰·拉贝，对南京的大多数中国人来说，他是一名英雄，“南京的活菩萨”，一位南京国际安全区的传奇首领，他保全了成千上万个中国人的性命。但是对日本人而言，拉贝是一个奇怪的和讨厌的拯救者。因为他不但是一名德国公民——一名与日本结盟国家的公民——而且是纳粹党在南京的负责人。
从1996年开始，我对约翰·拉贝的生平进行了一番调查，并最终发现了拉贝和其他纳粹党人在暴行期间保存下来的数千页日记。这些日记使我得出这样一个结论，约翰·拉贝是“中国的奥斯卡·辛德勒”。
南京城唯一的外科医生
南京城的外科医生都撤离了南京，只有罗伯特·威尔逊先生留了下来，这并不奇怪，他出生在这里，井在这里度过童年时代，南京在他心目中占据着特殊的位置
随着局势的恶化，医院里的工作人员减少了。中国医生和护士们加入了成千上万南京居民向西迁移的行列，逃离南京，威尔逊竭力劝阻他的同事们要留下来，并坚持认为，南京陷落以后在戒严法的保护之下，他们没有什么可害怕的危险。然而最终他未能说服他们。到12月的第一个周末，金陵大学医院里仅剩下3名医生：罗伯特·威尔赴，C· S·持里默和一名中国医生。城中的另一位美国外科医生理查德·布雷迪也因他的小女儿在牯岭病重而离开南京，这样威尔逊就成为唯一的一位每小时都要做一例截肢手术的外科医生。“这简直太令人难以置信了，”他在12月7日的日记中写道，“我是这座被战争破坏的大城市中唯一的外科医生。”
威康明娜·沃特林（大多数人叫她明妮·沃特林）在日军占领之前是金陵女子文理学院教育系主任及院长，南京大屠杀开始后的几周里，留在城中的西方妇女屈指可数，沃特林便是其中之一。许多年后人们都会记得她，不仅因为她为保护数千名妇女儿童免遭日军欺辱时所表现出来的巨大勇气，而且因为她所保留下来的日记尤为珍贵。一些历史学家认为这些日记最终会像安妮·弗兰克的日记一样为世人承认，其重要性在于它阐释了在战争大劫难期间一名见证者的精神。
南京的暴行使沃特林身体非常疲乏，但她每天都要经受的精神折磨远比其休力上的消耗更为糟糕。“唉，上帝，请扼制今晚南京城日本兵的残酷兽行……”她在日记中写道“如果日本妇女知道了这些可怕故事的真相，她们将会多么地羞耻和惭愧。”
在如此之大的压力下，沃特林仍然打起精神去安慰别人，并争取重新唤起他们的爱国主义情感。这是多么的不寻常啊。当一个老太太到金陵学院的红十字会食堂要一碗米粥时，得知粥已经没有，沃特林立刻把自己正在喝的粥给了她并对她说：“你们不要担心，日本会失败的。中国将不会灭亡。”另一次，当她看见一个男孩戴着一个标有日本象征的图案——正在升起的太阳的袖章以保证安全时，沃特林指责他说：“你不需要戴这个有太阳图案的袖章。你是一个中国人，而且你的国家还没亡。你应该记住戴这个袖章的日子，你永远也不应该忘记。”沃特林一而再地鼓励校园内的中国难民千万不要对未来失去信心。“中国还没有灭亡，”她告诉他们，“中国将永远不会灭亡。而日本注定最终将失败。”
——安全区最终安置了20万到30万名难民——几乎占了留在城里的人口的一半。
根据后来南京大屠杀的研究，可看出这是一个令人发指的统计数字。有一半的原南京居民在屠杀前离开了南京。而大约一半留下的人（南京陷落时，60万到70万中国难民、当地居民和士兵中的35万人）被杀。
“如果说在大屠杀最猖狂时有一半南京人口逃入了安全区，那么另一半人——几乎是每一个未能进入安全区的人——大概都惨死在日本人手里了。”
第六章 世界知道些什么
据观察家估计，日本人损坏的公共财产按1939年的美元计算，总共约8．36亿美元，而私人财产损失至少1·36亿美元。这些数字还不包括被日本军队拿走的无可替代的文物的价值。
第七章 日军占领下的南京
几年之内南京便从废墟中站了起来。1938年春天，人们开始冒险回到这个城市。有些人回来查看损失情况，有些人回来找工作，因为他们的钱已经花完，还有一些人看看情况是否足够安全，能把他们全家迂回。南京重建开始时，对劳动力的需求增长，很快地便把更多的人吸引回来，不久之后他们的妻子和孩子就参加到向南京迁移的人流中。在一年半的时间里人口翻了一番，从1938年3月的25万一30万人增至1939年12月的57．6万人以上。虽然尚未达到这个城市在1936年的100万人口的水平。到了1942年人口达到了最高点约70万，并在战争持续期间稳定在这一水平上。
在日本人统治下的生活远谈不上愉快。但很多人逐渐相信征服者将留下来，一种屈服的情绪在这座城市蔓延开来。偶尔有一些地下的反抗--间或有人跑进坐满日本军官的戏院，扔一颗炸弹。但一般来说，这类造反是零星的和罕有的，大多数反抗日本人的敌意的表示是非暴力的，例如反对日本人的招贴、传单和在墙上的涂画。
第八章 审判日来临
更添混乱的是学者之间关于征服世界的日本的帝国阴谋是否曾经存在的争论。人们相信，在1927年远东会议期间，首相田中义一曾向天皇呈交了一份秘密报告，报告称为“田中备忘录”
(即《田中奏折》。--译注)，据说概括了当时日本的野心。报告断言：“如欲征服世界，必先征服支那。”“惟欲征服支那，必先征服满、蒙，……倘支那完全可被我国征服，其他如小中亚细亚及印度、南洋等异服之民族，必畏我敬我而降于我。使世界知东亚为我国之东亚，永不敢向我侵犯，此乃明治大帝之遗策，是亦我日本帝国之存立上必要之事业也。”
如今，学者们普遍认为这份报告是伪造的，可能是从俄国人那里传出来的。但是，1929年9月这份备忘录第一次在北京出现的时候，它使很多人相信，日本侵略中国是其征服全球的、计划周全的阴谋的一部分。田中备忘录的英文本后来在上海的报纸上以英文刊出，而且甚至激发了一部典型的好莱坞影片《太阳血》。在影片中，詹姆斯·卡格尼为了拯救世界企图偷取日本的总计划。如今，田中备忘录仍大大地左右着世界的想象力：许多中国历史学家认为田中备忘录是可信的，而中国的百科全书、辞典，以及英文报纸和电讯社文章继续把备忘录作史实引用。
当前，没有一个有声望的日本历史学家相信日本有一个征服世界的预谋。对20世纪20年代和30年代日本国家行政机构的混乱状况进行的调查表明，这样一个密谋是不可能的：日本的陆军憎恨海军；在东京的最高司令部不知道在满洲的关东军在干什么，等到知道已为时太晚；外交部和武装部队之间的关系是冷淡到守口如瓶。
然而，许多历史学家认为裕仁一定知道南京暴行的事。(赫伯特·比克斯个人认为，"裕仁可能不知道"是"难以置信”的。)首先，它是世界报社的头版新闻。其次，他自己的弟弟该会告诉他骇人听闻的细节。1943年，裕仁天皇最小的弟弟三笠宫崇仁亲王曾在日本皇军侵华远征军的南京司令部当过一年参谋，他在那里听一个年轻军官说过用中国俘虏作刺刀练习的活靶以训练新兵。这名军官告诉亲王，"这样能帮他们提高胆量"。惊骇万分的三笠宫把这种练习描述为“真是一个恐怖的场面，只能叫作大屠杀”。“出于要结束战争的强烈愿望”，亲王发给年轻的参谋们一份调查表，征询他们对战争的意见；准备一次演讲，谴责日本侵略中国，并写了一份报告：《一个日本人对中日战争的反省》。这篇文章被认是有争议的和危险的，但因为三笠宫有皇族血统，他没有因为写了它而受到惩罚。后来，日本军方没收并销毁了多数的文本，但有一份幸存下来，最后在国家议会档案馆收藏的缩微胶片中发现。
第九章 幸存者的命运
在研究南京大屠杀的学者中，不只一人认为，在远东军事法庭的审判之后，正义没有得到伸张。当许多曾经蹂躏南京人民的日本人从日本政府领取全部养老金和其他津贴的时候，成千上万的受难者却默默地忍受贫穷、耻辱，或是漫长的身心痛苦。
这种正义的颠倒是伴随着冷战开始的。美国起初打算在日本推行民主，清除日本卷入战争的领导人的统治。但是战后的苏联违背了其在雅尔塔会议上的承诺，占领了波兰和德国的部分领土。当东欧共产主义的“铁幕”降临之时，毛泽东领导的共产党军队击败了蒋介石，并迫使其政府撤退到台湾岛。1950年，朝鲜战争爆发，在这场战争中，有100万朝鲜人、25万中国人和3．4万名美国人死去。由于中国、苏联和北朝鲜成为美国新的战后敌人，美国突然把日本当作一个具有战略重要性的国家。基于此，华盛顿决定保持一个稳定的日本政府，以挑战亚洲的共产主义力量。美国几乎完全保留了日本战前的官僚体系，并允许许多战犯逍遥法外。就这样，当纳粹制度被推翻，大量的纳粹战犯被捕获并带上法庭的时候，许多日本战时高级官员却重新大权在握，如日中天。在1957年，日本的一位曾被囚禁的甲级战犯竟然被选作首相(指1957年被任为首相的岸信介。--编注)。
与此同时，几乎所有的南京大屠杀幸存者却从公众的视野中消失了。在冷战期间，与中国其他地方一样，南京处于一种与国际社会相隔离的状态。在几十年里，中国政府不仅断绝了同西方的来往，还驱逐了很多留在南京的外国人，甚至包括那些曾作为南京安全区负责人员拯救了很多中国人生命的外国人。
国际人权律师卡伦·帕克认为，虽然中国多次发表对日本人宽宏友善的声明，但从未与日本签订放弃对日本战争罪行索取国家赔偿的协定。另外，帕克还指出，即使签订一个这样的协定，但根据不容否定法的原则，该协定也不能侵犯作为个人的中国人索取战争赔偿的权利。
但是，我在南京遇见的幸存者大多不知道国际法的这些错综复杂之处，而是认为已经剥夺了他们索赔的权利。一个男人在南京暴行中几乎被活活烧死，他告诉我，当他听到中国原谅日本罪行的谣言时，禁不住痛哭失声。
同样值得深思的是许多曾经组织南京安全区的外国人的命运。尽管他们竭尽全力帮助南京的中国人，但他们从未从生活和后人那里得到他们所应得的。还没有一本描写这些被遗忘的二战英雄的著名图书，当然也没有一部像《辛德勒的名单》那样强烈地吸引起全世界人民注意的影片。他们的精神主要藏在从柏林到美国森尼韦尔的档案和阁楼中--由于他们曾像活菩萨一样拯救过南京，他们的精神也为中国的幸存者们铭记在心。
在多数南京的幸存者知道安全区的领导人做过的事，但几乎无人了解他们后来的遭际。一些这样的外国人后来备受羞辱，被逐出中国，回到祖国后又遭到审讯和隔离，身心都受到了无法愈合的创伤，有人甚至绝望自杀。当我在中国谈话的幸存者听到这些时，他们十分痛苦。这些外国人中的一些人可以算是南京暴行迟来的受难者。
莱因哈特担心向世界公开这些日记的影响。她认为这些日记会成为破坏中日关系的炸弹，在我的催促下，也是在为联合国工作的曾担任纪念南京大屠杀死难同胞联合会主席的邵子平先生的催促下，莱因哈特决定将日记公开。她用了15个小时将日记影印出来。邵子平担心日本右翼分子会闯进莱因哈特家，毁掉日记或是用重金买走原件，固就很快把莱因哈特及其丈夫用飞机送到纽约。在纽约，日记的副本在一次记者招待会上捐给了耶鲁神学院图书馆，该日记首先在《纽约时报》披露。之后，在1996年12月12日--南京陷落59周年，彼得·詹宁斯又在美国广播公司电视台、有线新闻广播公司及其他世界媒介组织做了报道。
历史学家们对这一日记价值的看法完全一致。许多历史学家认为，该日记是南京大屠杀确实发生过的更具结论性的证据，同时，这是一份从纳粹分子的角度写出的东西，更令人感到意味深长。拉贝的记述增加了美国关于这场大屠杀的报道的真实性，不仅是因为一位纳粹缺乏编造南京暴行的动机，更是因为在拉贝记录中，将美国人日记从英文译出的内容与原文一字不差。在中国，学者们在《人民日报》上声明，拉贝的日记印证了中国很多现存的关于南京大屠杀的资料。在美国，哈佛大学的中国史教授威廉·柯比告诉《纽约时报》：“这是一份扣人心弦、令人压抑的纪实资料，细致地运用了大量的细节和冲突。它以一种非常重要的方式使人们将重新审视南京的暴行，通过它，人们能够了解每一天的事情，为早已广为人知的南京暴行再增加100到200个故事。”
日本的历史学家们也声明了拉贝日记的重要性。宇都宫大学的中国现代史教授笠原十九司在《朝日新闻》上声明："这份报告的重要性不仅在于它出自一个日本盟友的德国人之手，还在于拉贝曾将这份报告呈交希特勒，以使其了解南京发生的暴行。拉贝曾是纳粹党在南京的副主席，他恳求日本盟友的最高领导希特勒干涉这次大规模的屠杀。干叶大学的日本现代史教授秦郁彦补充说：“这份报告的意义在于，一个自己的祖国同日本是盟国的德国人客观地描述了南京的暴行。在这个意义上，作为历史文件，它的价值超过了美国传教士的证词。当时，德国正对站在日本还是中国一边举棋不定。但是，里宾特洛甫(纳粹战犯，1938年起任德国外交部长，1946年被纽伦堡国际军事法庭判处绞刑--译注)就任外交部长促进了德国与日本结盟。在这样紧要时刻，拉贝还试图让希特勒了解南京的暴行，拉贝的勇气实在令人敬佩。”
第十章 被遗忘的大屠杀：再次凌辱
今天，在美国任何一个地方，或是世界上大多数地区，有哪一个孩子没有看到奥斯维辛集中营毒气室那令人毛骨悚然的照片?哪一个孩子没有读过年轻的安妮·弗兰克在集中营里悲惨遭遇的故事片断呢?的确，至少在美国，大部分学生都受到了美国在日本广岛和长崎投掷原子弹的毁灭性后果的教育。但是，如果去问多数美国人--无论成年人还是孩子，包括受到高等教育的成年人--他们是否知道南京的暴行，你会发现，绝大多数人对60年前南京发生的事一无所知。一位著名的政府的历史学家告诉我，在她读研究生期间，这个题目从未被提起过。一位普林斯顿大学毕业的律师很羞愧地告诉我，她甚至不知道中国与日本之间曾发生过战争，她对第二次世界大战中太平洋战争的了解仅限于珍珠港和广岛。这种无知甚至也存在于亚裔美国人之中。一位妇女曾问我：“南京?是什么，是一个朝代?"从中可以看她也少得可怜的地理和历史知识。
60年前曾是美国报纸头版消息的事件，现在看起来已经消失了。好莱坞从未制作过一部关于这场屠杀的主流影片--即使这一事件包含着与《辛德勒的名单》相似的戏剧成份。另外，直到最近，大多数美国的小说家和历史学家也没有准备写这件事。
在听到这样的说法之后，我感到一阵恐惧：30万中国人被杀害的历史可能会消失，就像他们在日本人的占领下消失一样；有一天，世界会真的相信日本政客的话，南京的暴行是一个骗局，是捏造出来的--大屠杀根本就没有发生过。为写作本书，我强迫自己不仅深入研究历史，同时也研究历史的编写--去检验历史的力量，检验历史的制作过程。究竟是什么使某些事件留在历史之中，而让其他的归于乌有呢?具体地说，像南京的暴行这样的事件，是怎样从日本(以至世界)集体的记忆中消失的?
结语
对于大多数人来说，是无法想象日本士兵和军官在何种心理下犯下这些滔天罪行的。但有很多历史学家、目击者、幸哿者以及当年的作恶者自己都总结了是什么驱使日本皇军犯下这些赤裸裸的罪行。
一些日本学者相信，中日战争中的南京暴行及其他残暴行为是由一种叫“压迫的传导”现象造成的。据《隐藏的恐怖：在二战中的日本战争罪行》的作者田中雄喜所说，日本现代军队自其诞生之日起就有巨大的暴行隐患。原因有二：首先是日军官兵中存在的独断专行和残酷虐待，再就是日本社会由天皇身旁的人支配的森严的等级制度。在侵占南京之前，日军对自己的士兵也长期施加羞辱。士兵被迫为长官洗内衣，或是温顺地站着任由长官掴耳光，直至鲜血横流。用乔治·奥威尔的话说，日本士兵时常受到的这些抽打，是来自长官的“爱的行动”；而日本海军用“铁拳”加强的残暴纪律，则被叫做“爱之鞭”。
人们常说，权力最小的人一旦握有对社会等级中更低微人们的生杀大权，常常会变成最残暴不仁的人。日本士兵来到海外后，因为森严的等级制度而压抑的残暴突然得到了发泄。在外国领土或殖民地上，作为天皇的代表，日本士兵享有巨大的权力。在中国，即使是最低级的日本列兵，其地位也要超过最有权有势的中国人。由此不难看出，长期被压抑的愤怒、仇恨和对权力的恐惧就是如此在南京爆发成无法控制的暴力。日本士兵沉默地接受了长官施加的一切，那么中国人也必须接受他们选择的一切暴行。
可悲的是，世人仍以消极的态度面对日本的第二次暴行--日本人拒绝为他们在南京的罪行道歉，甚至拒绝承认发生过大屠杀，更有甚者，日本的极端分子还试图在世界历史中涂抹掉这一事件。要了解这种不公正的程度，人们只须比较一下日本和德国政府在战后的赔偿就一清二楚了。虽然仅金钱本身不能使死难者复生，也不能磨去幸存者痛苦的记忆，但至少可以说明罪孽的元凶究竟是谁。
作为赔偿，德国政府已至少支付了880亿德国马克，还要在2005年赔偿200亿德国马克。如果把所有的赔款加在一起，包括个人受难者赔偿、财产损失赔偿、抚恤性赔偿、国家法定赔偿、特别问题最后赔偿，以及根据国际协定对以色列和16个其他国家战争损失的赔款，这些共计1240亿德国马克，折合600亿美元。日本人则几乎没有为自己在战争中的罪行付出任何赔偿。有一个时期，就连瑞士都拿出数十亿美元补偿战争中受到损失的犹太人的帐户，而许多日本重要官员却继续相信(或是假装相信)他们的国家从未做过任何应当赔偿或是道歉的事。他们还诡辩说，他们的政府被指责所犯下的许多暴行从来就没有发生过，那些确凿的证据不过是中国人和其他辱没日本的人捏造出来的。
今天，日本政府认为所有的战争赔偿事宜都已被1952年旧金山和平协定所解决了。但读一下这个协定就会发现，问题是要搁置到日本经济条件好转之后再进行解决。协定第五章14款规定：“日本应向各盟国进行赔偿已是共识。但是日本目前资源匮乏的情况也有目共睹，所以，须等其经济复苏，再向各国的所有损失和痛苦进行彻底的赔偿，并同时履行其他义务"。
冷战时期最有讽刺意味的一件事是，日本不仅躲避了赔偿的责任，还从美国得到了数十亿美元的援助，使其从美国的敌对国成为经济强国和竞争者。现在，亚洲人民十分关注日本人中军国主义抬头的迹象。在里根当政时期，美国帮助日本加强军事力量--这引起了许多曾多年遭受日本战争侵略的民族的警惕。菲律宾外交部长、普里策奖获得者、二战期间麦克阿瑟将军的副官卡洛斯·罗慕洛说："忽视历史的人更容易成为历史的受害者"。他对日本文化所激发的竞争性的民族精神有很深的理解："日本人是一个执著的民族，也很有头脑。在二战末期，没人能想到日本成为世界上经济最发达的国家--但他们做到了。如果你给他们成为军事强国的机会--他们将真的会成为军事强国。"
但冷战已经结束了，中国正从封闭走向开放，并迅速发展起来，其他曾在战争期间受到日本欺凌的亚洲国家也在世界经济竞技场中崛起，能够同日本相匹敌。在今后的几年里，人们会看到针对日本战争罪行的积极的大跨步行动。美国社会正在更民主地融入亚洲人。与他们密集于科技领域听父辈们不同，年轻的华裔美国人和华裔加拿大人正迅速地扩大在法律、政治和新闻业中的影响--在北美历史上，亚洲人很少在这些领域涉足。
从我开始写作本书到脱稿期间，公众对南京大屠杀的关注大大地增加了。在90年代，出现了大量关于南京暴行以及关于慰安妇、日本用战争受难者进行医学试验和其他有关暴行的小说、历史著作和报刊文章。旧金山的学校正计划将南京的暴行纳入课程表，华人地产商也已规划了建立中国屠杀纪念馆的蓝图。
在本书即将完成之际，美国政府已开始对社会活动家的要求作出反应，向日本施加压力，迫使其面对战争的暴行。1996年12月3日，美国司法部列出了日本战犯的名单，禁止他们进入美国。1997年4月，前美国驻日大使沃尔特．蒙代尔对新闻界说，日本必须诚实地面对历史。他希望日本为其战争罪行充分道歉。另外，南京的暴行成为一项提案，不久将会进入美国众议院。1997年春，议员们同人权活动家一道起草了一项提案，谴责日本在二战期间虐待美国和其他国豪战俘，要求日本向战争受难者正式道歉和赔偿。
当今一代的日本人正面临一个重大的选择。他们可以继续自欺欺人，把日本侵略战争当做“圣战”，而日本的战败仅仅是由于美国的经济实力。或者同本民族过去的残暴行径决裂，认清这样的事实：正是因为日本战败，它才无法将其可怕的“爱”施加到更多的人身上，这个世界才变得更加美好：如果当代日本人不采取行动去坚持真相，历史就会给他们带来如同其先辈一样声名狼藉的危险。
对于自己在南京犯下的滔天罪行，日本不仅在法律上有责任，更在道义上有义务去承认。至少，日本政府应当向受难者发表声明正式道歉，并赔偿浩劫中的受难者。更重要的是，要将大屠杀的真相教育给将来的每一代日本公民。如果旱本还期望得到国际社会的尊重，并合上自己历史上污迹斑斑的黑暗篇章的话，这些早就应该做到的工作对日本十分重要。
The book was a source of fame for Chang but was also controversial; it has been praised as a work which "shows more clearly than any previous account just what [the Japanese] did", and at the same time was criticised as "seriously flawed" and "full of misinformation and harebrained explanations". It was received with both acclaim and criticism by the public and by academics. Chang's research on the book was credited with the finding of the diaries of John Rabe and Minnie Vautrin, both of whom played important roles in the Nanking Safety Zone, a designated area in Nanjing which protected Chinese civilians during the Nanking Massacre.
The book prompted AOL executive Ted Leonsis to fund and produce Nanking, a 2007 documentary film about the Nanking Massacre, after he read it.
Inspiration
When Iris Chang was a child, she was told by her immigrant parents, who had escaped from China via Taiwan to the United States during World War II, that during the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese "sliced babies not just in half but in thirds and fourths". In the introduction of The Rape of Nanking, she wrote that throughout her childhood, the Nanking Massacre "remained buried in the back of [her] mind as a metaphor for unspeakable evil". When she searched the local public libraries in her school and found nothing, she wondered why nobody had written a book about it.
The subject of the Nanking Massacre entered Chang's life again almost two decades later when she learned of producers who had completed documentary films about it. One of the producers was Shao Tzuping, who helped produce Magee's Testament, a film which contains footage of the Nanking Massacre itself, shot by the missionary John Magee. The other producer was Nancy Tong, who, together with Christine Choy, produced and co-directed In The Name of the Emperor, a film containing a series of interviews with Chinese, American, and Japanese citizens. Chang began talking to Shao and Tong, and soon she was connected to a network of activists who felt the need to document and publicize the Nanking Massacre. In December 1994, she attended a conference on the Nanking Massacre, held in Cupertino, California, and it was what she saw and heard at the conference that motivated her to write The Rape of Nanking. As she wrote in the introduction of the book, while she was at the conference, she was "suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it".
[edit]Research
Chang spent two years on research for the book. She found that raw source materials were available in the US, contained in the diaries, films, and photographs of American missionaries, journalists, and military officers who were in Nanjing at the time of the Nanking Massacre. Additionally, she traveled to Nanjing to interview survivors of the Nanking Massacre and to read Chinese accounts and confessions by Japanese army veterans. Chang did not, however, conduct research in Japan, and this left her vulnerable to criticisms on how she portrayed modern Japan in the context of how it deals with its World War II past.
Chang's research led her to make what one San Francisco Chronicle article called "significant discoveries" on the subject of the Nanking Massacre, in the forms of the diaries of two Westerners that were in Nanjing leading efforts to save lives during the Japanese invasion. The first diary was that of John Rabe, a German Nazi Party member who was the leader of the Nanking Safety Zone, a demilitarized zone in Nanjing that Rabe and other Westerners set up to protect Chinese civilians. The other diary belonged to the American missionary Minnie Vautrin, who saved the lives of about 10,000 women and children when she provided them with shelter in Ginling College. The diaries documented the events of the Nanking Massacre from the perspectives of their writers, and provided detailed accounts of atrocities that they saw, as well as information surrounding the circumstances of the Nanking Safety Zone. Chang dubbed Rabe the "Oskar Schindler of Nanking" and Vautrin the "Anne Frank of Nanking". Rabe's diary is over 800 pages, and contains one of the most detailed accounts of the Nanking Massacre. Translated into English, it was published in 1998 by Random House as a book on its own, called The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe. Vautrin's diary recounts her personal experience and feelings on the Nanking Massacre; in it, an entry reads, "There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today." It was used as source material for a biographical book about Vautrin and her role during the Nanking Massacre, called American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin, written by Hua-ling Hu.
[edit]The book
The Rape of Nanking is structured into three main parts. The first part uses a technique that Chang called "the Rashomon perspective" to narrate the events of the Nanking Massacre, from three different perspectives: that of the Japanese military, the Chinese victims, and the Westerners who tried to help Chinese civilians. The second part was written on the postwar reaction to the massacre, especially the reaction of the American and European governments. The third part of the book is dedicated to examining the circumstances that, Chang believed, have kept knowledge of the massacre out of public consciousness decades after the war.
[edit]Atrocities
The book depicted in detail the killing, torture, and rape that occurred during the Nanking Massacre. Chang listed and described the kinds of torture that were visited upon the residents, including live burials, mutilation, "death by fire", "death by ice", and "death by dogs". Based on the testimony of a survivor of the massacre, Chang also described a killing contest amongst a group of Japanese soldiers to determine who could kill the fastest. On the rape that occurred during the massacre, Chang wrote that "certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history." She estimated that the number of women raped ranged from twenty thousand to as many as eighty thousand, and stated that women from all classes were raped, including Buddhist nuns. Furthermore, rape occurred in all locations and at all hours, and women both very young and very old were raped. Not even pregnant women were spared, Chang wrote, and that after gang rape, Japanese soldiers "sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the fetuses for amusement". Not all rape victims were women, according to the book, Chinese men were sodomized and forced to perform repulsive sexual acts. Some were forced to commit incest—fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers.
[edit]Death toll
Chang wrote of the death toll estimates given by different sources; Chinese military specialist Liu Fang-chu proposed a figure of 430,000, officials at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall and the procurator of the District Court of Nanjing in 1946 stated at least 300,000 were killed, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) judges concluded that more than 260,000 people were killed, Japanese historian Fujiwara Akira approximated 200,000, John Rabe, who "never conducted a systematic count and left Nanking in February", estimated only 50,000 to 60,000, and Japanese author Ikuhiko Hata argued the number killed was between 38,000 and 42,000.
The book discussed the research of historian Sun Zhaiwei of the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences. In a 1990 paper entitled The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population, Sun estimated the total number of people killed at 377,400. Using Chinese burial records, he calculated that the number dead exceeded the figure of 227,400. He then added estimates totaling 150,000 given by Japanese imperial army major Ohta Hisao in a confessional report about the Japanese army's disposal efforts of dead bodies, arriving at the sum of 377,400 dead.
Chang wrote that there is "compelling evidence" that the Japanese themselves, at the time, believed that the death toll may have been as high as 300,000. She cited a message that Japan's foreign minister Hirota Koki relayed to his contacts in Washington, DC in the first month of the massacre on January 17, 1938. The message acknowledged that "not less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians [were] slaughtered, many cases in cold blood."
[edit]Acclaim
Second edition (1998) of the book.
The Rape of Nanking sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the US, and according to The New York Times, received general critical acclaim. Iris Chang became an instant celebrity in the US; she was awarded honorary degrees, invited to give lectures and to discuss the Nanking Massacre on shows such as Good Morning America, Nightline, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and was profiled by The New York Times as well as featured on the cover of Reader's Digest. The book was on the New York Times' Best Seller list for 10 weeks and sold more than 125,000 copies in four months. Hillary Clinton invited her to the White House, US historian Stephen Ambrose described her as "maybe the best young historian we’ve got", and the Organization of Chinese Americans named her National Woman of the Year. The book's popularity prompted a lengthy book tour, with Chang visiting 65 cities in over a year and a half.
The book received praise from news media. The Wall Street Journal wrote that it was the "first comprehensive examination of the destruction of this Chinese imperial city", and that Chang "skillfully excavated from oblivion the terrible events that took place". The Atlantic Monthly wrote that it was "a crushing indictment of the Japanese army's behavior". The Chicago Tribune wrote that it was "a powerful new work of history and moral inquiry" and that "Chang takes great care to establish an accurate accounting of the dimensions of the violence." The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that it was a "compelling account of a horrendous episode that, until recently, has been largely forgotten", and that "animals do not behave the way the Japanese troops of the Imperial Army behaved."
According to William C. Kirby, Professor of History at Harvard University, Chang "shows more clearly than any previous account just what [the Japanese] did", and that she "draws connections between the slaughter in Europe and in Asia of millions of innocents during World War II". Ross Terrill, an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University, wrote that the book is "scholarly, an exciting investigation and a work of passion". Beatrice S. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of History at Yale University, wrote, "Iris Chang's research on the Nanking holocaust yields a new and expanded telling of this World War II atrocity and reflects thorough research."
[edit]Chang's death
The book was the main source of fame for Iris Chang, who was well-respected in China for raising awareness of the Nanking Massacre in the Western world. At the same time, Chang received hate mail (primarily from Japanese ultranationalists), threatening notes on her car and believed her phone was tapped. She would respond overwhelmingly to any question of the validity of her work. Her own mother said the book "made Iris sad". Chang suffered from depression and was diagnosed with "brief reactive psychosis" in August 2004. She began taking medications to stabilize her mood. She wrote:
I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me.
Succumbing to her battle with depression, Chang took her own life in November 2004. After her suicide, a memorial service was held in China by Nanking Massacre survivors at the same time as her funeral in Los Altos, California, and the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, a memorial site in Nanjing built to commemorate the victims of the Nanking Massacre, added a wing dedicated to her in 2005.
In the US, a Chinese garden in Norfolk, Virginia, which contains a memorial to Minnie Vautrin, added a memorial dedicated to Chang, including her as the latest victim of the Nanking Massacre, and drawing parallels between Chang and Vautrin, who also took her own life. Vautrin exhausted herself trying to protect women and children during the Nanking Massacre and subsequently during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, finally suffering a nervous breakdown in 1940. She returned to the US for medical treatment, committing suicide a year later.
[edit]Criticism
Joshua A. Fogel, Canada Research Chair at York University, argued that the book is "seriously flawed" and "full of misinformation and harebrained explanations." He suggested that the book "starts to fall apart" when Chang tried to explain why the massacre took place, as she repeatedly commented on "the Japanese psyche" which she sees as "the historical product of centuries of conditioning that all boil down to mass murder" even though in the introduction, she wrote that she will offer no "commentary on the Japanese character or the genetic makeup of a people who could commit such acts". Fogel criticized that part of the problem is Chang's "lack of training as a historian" and another part is "the book's dual aim as passionate polemic and dispassionate history". David M. Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winning professor of history at Stanford University, also pointed out that while Chang noted that "this book is not intended as a commentary on the Japanese character," she then wrote about the "'Japanese identity'—a bloody business, in her estimation, replete with martial competitions, samurai ethics, and the fearsome warriors' code of bushido", making the inference that "'the path to Nanking' runs through the very marrow of Japanese culture." Kennedy also suggested that "accusation and outrage, rather than analysis and understanding, are this book's dominant motifs, and although outrage is a morally necessary response to Nanjing, it is an intellectually insufficient one." Roger B. Jeans, professor of history at Washington and Lee University, refers to Chang's book as "half-baked history", and criticizes her lack of experience with the subject matter:
In writing about this horrific event, Chang strives to portray it as an unexamined Asian holocaust. Unfortunately, she undermines her argument—she is not a trained historian—by neglecting the wealth of sources in English and Japanese on this event. This leads her into errors such as greatly inflating the population of Nanjing (Nanking) at that time and uncritically accepting the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and contemporary Chinese figures for the numbers of Chinese civilians and soldiers killed. What particularly struck me about her argument was her attempt to charge all Japanese with refusing to accept the fact of the 'Rape of Nanking' and her condemnation of the 'persistent Japanese refusal to come to terms with its past.'
Jeans continued what he calls "giving the lie to Iris Chang's generalizations about 'the Japanese'" by discussing the clashing interest groups within Japanese society over such things as museums, textbooks, and war memory.
Robert Entenmann, professor of history at St. Olaf College, criticized the work on the grounds that the "Japanese historical background Chang presents is clichéd, simplistic, stereotyped, and often inaccurate." On Chang's treatment of modern Japanese reaction to the massacre, he writes that Chang seemed "unable to differentiate between some members of the ultranationalist fringe and other Japanese", and that "her own ethnic prejudice implicitly pervades her book." Stating that Chang's description of the massacre is "open to criticism", Entenmann further commented that Chang "does not adequately explain why the massacre occurred".
Journalist Timothy M. Kelly described Chang's work as exhibiting "simple carelessness, sheer sloppiness, historical inaccuracies, and shameless plagiarism." Kelly further criticized Chang for her "lack of attention to detail".[note 1] Finally, Kelly charged that Chang also had plagiarized passages and an illustration from Japan's Imperial Conspiracy by David Bergamini.
Kennedy criticized Chang's accusation of "Western indifference" and "Japanese denial" of the massacre as being "exaggerated", commenting that "the Western world in fact neither then nor later ignored the Rape of Nanking" and that "nor is Chang entirely correct that Japan has obstinately refused to acknowledge its wartime crimes, let alone express regret for them." Chang argues that Japan "remains to this day a renegade nation," having "managed to avoid the moral judgment of the civilized world that the Germans were made to accept for their actions in this nightmare time." However, according to Kennedy, this accusation has already become a cliché of Western criticism of Japan, most notably exemplified by Ian Buruma's The Wages of Guilt (1994), whose general thesis might be summarized as "Germany remembers too much, Japan too little." Kennedy pointed out that a vocal Japanese left has long kept the memory of Nanking alive, noting the 1995 resolution of Japan's House of Councillors that expressed "deep remorse" (fukai hansei) for the suffering that Japan inflicted on other peoples during World War II and clear apologies (owabi) for Imperial Japan's offenses against other nations from two Japanese Prime Ministers.
Sonni Efron of Los Angeles Times warned that the bitter row over Iris Chang's book may leave Westerners with the "misimpression" that little has been written in Japan about the Nanjing Massacre, when in fact the National Diet Library holds at least 42 books about the Nanjing massacre and Japan's wartime misdeeds, 21 of which were written by liberals investigating Japan's wartime atrocities. In addition, Efron noted that geriatric Japanese soldiers have published their memoirs and have been giving speeches and interviews in increasing numbers, recounting the atrocities they committed or witnessed. After years of government-enforced denial, Japanese middle school textbooks now carry accounts of the Nanjing massacre as accepted truth. Fogel also writes: "Dozens of Japanese scholars are now actively engaged in research on every aspect of the war.... Indeed, we know many details of the Nanjing massacre, Japanese sexual exploitation of 'comfort women,' and biological and chemical warfare used in China because of the trailblazing research" of Japanese scholars.
[edit]Responding to criticism
The original version of a photograph used by Chang—the accuracy of the caption in the book is disputed
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Charles Burress wrote that Chang's quote of a secret telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister in 1938 was incorrectly cited as "compelling evidence" that Japanese troops killed at least 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanjing. According to Burress, the figure of 300,000 Chinese civilians killed actually came from a message sent by a British reporter, concerning deaths not only in Nanjing but in other places as well. Additionally, Burress questioned her motivation for writing the book on whether she wrote it as an activist or as a historian, citing that the book "draws its emotional impetus" from her conviction to not let the Nanking Massacre be forgotten to the world. Burress also cited Ikuhiko Hata, a Japanese history professor at Nihon University, who argued that 11 photos in the book were misrepresented or fake. One particular photo shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, and captioned as "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution." Hata stated that the photo originally appeared in 1937 in a Japanese newspaper as part of a series of photos that showed peaceful scenes of Chinese villagers under Japanese occupation.
Chang attempted to respond to Burress' criticism in a letter written to the San Francisco Chronicle, but the letter was not published by the newspaper. In the letter, she offered criticism of her own concerning Burress' article. Chang found that it was a "disturbing tendency" that Burress quoted right-wing Japanese critics "without demanding evidence to back up their allegations". Furthermore, she argued that Ikuhiko Hata, a source cited by Burress, was not "regarded as a serious scholar" either in Japan or in the US, because he was a regular contributor to "ultra right-wing" Japanese publications. One such publication had published an article from a Holocaust denier which argued that no gas chambers were used in Germany to kill Jews. This has caused the parent publisher to shut down the publication. On Burress' criticism of her inaccurate photo captioning, Chang disputed the contention that the caption was wrong. She wrote that her book dealt with the "horror of the Japanese invasion of China", and that the caption reading "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution" contained two statements of indisputable facts.
Chang also issued a rejoinder against Burress' argument that she incorrectly cited a telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister. She wrote that while the original figure of 300,000 Chinese civilian deaths in Nanjing was reported by a British reporter, this figure was cited in a message that Japan's foreign minister sent to his contacts in Washington, DC. Being a figure used by a high-ranking Japanese government official, Chang argued that this was evidence that the Japanese government recognized 300,000 as the number of Chinese civilian deaths. Finally, she criticized Burress for his "nitpick" of small details in order to draw attention away from the scope and magnitude of the Nanking Massacre, writing that such was a "common tactic" of Holocaust deniers.
[edit]Reaction in Japan
Japanese translation of the book, published in December 2007
The Rape of Nanking has caused controversy in Japan. Los Angeles Times staff writer Sonni Efron reported that in addition to receiving criticism by Japanese "ultranationalists" who believe that the massacre in Nanjing never took place, Chang was also criticized by Japanese liberals, who "insist the massacre happened but allege that Chang's flawed scholarship damages their cause". Associate Professor David Askew of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University stated that Chang's work dealt a "severe blow" to the "Great Massacre School" of thought, which advocates for the validity of the findings at the Tokyo Trials, the tribunal that was convened to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for crimes committed during World War II. Askew further argued that "the Great Massacre School has thus been forced into the (unusual) position of criticising a work that argues for a larger death toll."
Following the publication of The Rape of Nanking, Japanese critic Masaaki Tanaka decided to have his 1987 book on Nanking translated into English. Entitled What Really Happened in Nanking: the Refutation of a Common Myth, Tanaka states in his introduction "I am convinced that [American researchers] will arrive at the realization that violations of international law of the magnitude alleged by Iris Chang in The Rape of Nanking (more than 300,000 murders and 80,000 rapes) never took place."
Chang's book was not published in a translated Japanese language edition until December 2007. Problems with translation efforts surfaced immediately after a contract was signed for the Japanese publishing of the book. A Japanese literary agency informed Chang that several Japanese historians declined to review the translation, and that one professor backed out due to pressure placed on his family from "an unknown organization". According to Japan scholar Ivan P. Hall, revisionist historians in Japan organized a committee of right-wing scholars to condemn the book with repeated appearances at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo and throughout Japan. They prevailed on Kashiwa Shobo, the contracted Japanese publisher of the book, to insist that Chang edit the book for "corrections" they wanted made, to delete photographs and alter maps, and to publish a rebuttal to Chang's book. Chang disagreed with the changes and, as a result, withdrew the Japanese publishing of the book. The rebuttal piece was nonetheless published in the form of a 288-page book, titled A study of The Rape of Nanking, written by Nobukatsu Fujioka and Shudo Higashinakano.
Shudo Higashinakano, a professor of Intellectual History at Asia University of Japan, argued in an opinion column that appeared in Sankei Shimbun that the book was "pure baloney", that there was "no witness of illegal executions or murders", and that "there existed no 'Rape of Nanking' as alleged by the Tokyo Trial." He pointed out 90 historical factual errors in the first 64 pages of The Rape of Nanking, some of which were corrected in the 1998 Penguin Books edition of the book.
南京浩劫——被遗忘的大屠杀
美籍华人张纯如的书稿《南京浩劫》，既是对“二战”的西方史学研究的一种补正，亦是对“二战”中的侵略者罪行的整体完整性作出了学术贡献。
作者实地采访多位大屠杀幸存者，并佐以大量历史档案、第三方当事人的日记和书信，多视角回溯了南京大屠杀这一被遗忘的历史事件。书中讲述屠杀发生时“中国人个体的故事……
美籍华人张纯如的书稿《南京浩劫》，既是对“二战”的西方史学研究的一种补正，亦是对“二战”中的侵略者罪行的整体完整性作出了学术贡献。
作者实地采访多位大屠杀幸存者，并佐以大量历史档案、第三方当事人的日记和书信，多视角回溯了南京大屠杀这一被遗忘的历史事件。书中讲述屠杀发生时“中国人个体的故事……
蚕丝：钱学森传:独家揭秘钱学森在美20年人生里程
本书是关于钱学森的迄今为止最真实的一部传记。作者用西方人的视角，讲述了钱学森在美国的真实经历，书中涉及中美关系、军事、政治中的诸多大事件，是一部世界航天发展史和中国“两弹一星”、载人航天的发展史。
心得：作者张纯如是一位特别的美籍华裔作家，费时三年，以抽丝剥茧的方式述说了钱学森诡谲多变的一生。书中大量的档案文献讲述出了与我们所了解的不同的问题，一定会引起进一步的讨论和研究。
本书是关于钱学森的迄今为止最真实的一部传记。作者用西方人的视角，讲述了钱学森在美国的真实经历，书中涉及中美关系、军事、政治中的诸多大事件，是一部世界航天发展史和中国“两弹一星”、载人航天的发展史。
心得：作者张纯如是一位特别的美籍华裔作家，费时三年，以抽丝剥茧的方式述说了钱学森诡谲多变的一生。书中大量的档案文献讲述出了与我们所了解的不同的问题，一定会引起进一步的讨论和研究。