忘れ去られた声：生きた歴史

第二次世界大戦アジアの被害

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背景

ヨーロッパでの第二次世界大戦の虐殺の記録は西洋世界では正しく記録され教育にも広く反映されている。同時に人権侵害を含むアジアでの第二次世界大戦の歴史の研究や教育は遅れている。アジアへの無関心は政治的、経済的、文化的要素がさまざまに複雑にからんでいる。日本政府の日本帝国軍隊による戦争犯罪を今日まで認めない態度は東アジア諸国や世界の平和と和解への障壁となっている。

カナダの教育は包括的カリキュラムに基づいている。トロント・アルファ（ALPHA:Association for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia第二次世界大戦アジアの戦争の歴史を学び伝える会）は２０１０年１０月人権侵害の歴史の中で重要ではあるが忘れ去られたページについてカナダの教育者と学生に対して広範囲でユニークな学習の機会を提供する。

カナダの学生は世界的視野で戦争や紛争を研究することにより、グローバル市民として立ち上がり社会的正義、相互信頼、人種的調和の価値を守るための技術、知識、態度を養う。

戦争は６５年前の１９４５年８月１５日に終わった。年老いた被害者の声が忘れ去られる中でこの生きた歴史は集団記憶喪失に埋没し置き去りにされている。教育者の挑戦はこの歴史を復活させ学生に教えることである。

２０１０年国際教育会議でアジアの戦争が残した虐殺の歴史を学習

２０１０年１０月トロント・アルファは教育者のための教育会議を主催する。これは史上初めての試みである。約５００人が会議、展示、関連活動に参加する。

中国、韓国、日本、北アメリカから幸存者、学者、教育者、活動家がカナダに招待され、シンポジュウム、講演、ワークショップ、その他の教育活動でそれぞれの経験、洞察、知識を披露する。

会議の期間中、学習の他に展示会、演劇、映画祭も行われる。高校生の活動も同時進行して各会場で繰り広げられる。

Presentation for Toronto ALPHA Conference 2010

(Sep. 30-Oct.3, 2010)

“Nanking Massacre:

 The importance of accepting the death toll

“over 300,000”

Yoshiyuki Masaki

October, 2010

My name is Yoshiyuki Masaki. I am now representing Japan ALPHA. I’m a retired professor who taught  English for decades in Japanese schools. Besides my academic works, I translated the book "The Rape of Nanking--an Undeniable History in Photographs" and documentaries and films on atrocities committed by the Japanese such as "In the Name of the Emperor", "Murder under the Sun", “Nanking”, “Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking”, "Historical Analysis", “The City of Life and Death”, “Torn Memories of Nanking” and "John Rabe" into English and Japanese for subtitles.

This year on a memorial day of August 15 we had the honor of inviting Author Erna Paris to Fukuoka, Japan to talk about the Nanking Massacre and post-war reparations. Last year in 2009 we had “Nanking Film Festival” in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka where we screened Nanking related films such as “Nanking” “Iris Chang”, “Torn Memories of Nanking” and others. In Tokyo 900 people gathered to see four films with the venue guarded by ten policemen to drive away right-wingers, who are actually getting less and less noisy these days. It looks like they have used up all their resources to attack the unsinkable historical truth portrayed by the films. The power of films is enormous indeed.

Lenin says "Cinema is for us the most important of arts."

And Russian film director Elem Klimov says, "Herein lies the sense of creative work, when you can offer to people something real serious, real meaningful..."

I can see what they say is true by screening the films in Japan and watching the faces of the people change while seeing the films. The Japanese have not been taught the truth of the Nanking Massacre. They see for the first time what’s going on in the film and is shocked to see their own “good and old” ancestors doing such incredible things as raping women and killing them afterwards, stabbing crying babies, machine-gunning innocent civilians and helpless disarmed soldiers. The sight of the audience was revolutionary, I thought. I believe that by continuing to screen films and spreading the Nanking Massacre truth especially to college and high school students in Japan, there will be a revolution in their awareness and then in the society itself. I believe it works. A miracle will be in our hands if we make our united efforts to work it out.

What is the most important problem that is facing Japan now? I would say it is the recognition of the death toll. The film “John Rabe” gives the correct information by stating:

“Censuses revealed that at least 300,000 people were killed. Until the present day the Japanese government has refused to officially acknowledge the extent of the Rape of Nanking.”

Let me say that this number “300,000” is the key to solve the history issues that Japan faces now. People may say it is not the number that is important, but that is only if there is no one who denies the number. As long as there is someone, some government who denies the number, we have to prove them wrong by giving them evidence since we have solid evidence that no one can deny.

Let me show you here, to start with, a formal statement of the Japanese government concerning the Nanking Massacre and you’ll see how dishonest they are. They give three views, one of which is acceptable and the others not. The third is an acceptable one. It goes:

(3) “We frankly recognize the fact that, by colonization and invasion, Japan caused a great deal of damage and inflicted pain on many countries, especially Asian nations during one period of time in the past. We are determined to never again engage in war and will move forward as a peaceful nation always keeping our feelings of regret and remorse before us.”

This looks good but is actually far from their real intentions. Let’s see the other two which show their true feelings. One goes:

(1) We think it is undeniable that after the occupation of Nanking there were numerous cases of civilians being killed and acts of looting.

They did admit the killings of innocent civilians, which is better than, Ishihara Shintaro, Mayor of Tokyo’s total denial saying, “The Nanking Massacre is a lie made up by the Chinese.” But you can see the Japanese government omitted comments on any illegal killings of 90,000 disarmed Chinese soldiers.

And the other one clearly shows that the Japanese government is running away from their own responsibility. It goes:

(2) However, regarding the number of victims, there are differing views and we think it is very hard to decide which one is correct.

We all know that the Japanese government is lying about the number here because it is supposed to have accepted the number “over 300,000” back in 1951 in the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

Let me show you two important judgments that prove the authenticity of the number. There were two war crimes tribunals that gave the death toll of the Nanking Massacre in their judgments; The Nanking War Crimes Tribunal and The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the so-called Tokyo Trials.

The Nanking War Crimes Tribunal issued the following judgment on March 10th, 1947:                                                  

“The invading army, after occupying Nanking, spread into various parts of Nanking city and staged large-scale massacres, collectively killing and burning captive Chinese soldiers and civilians. The number of those amounted to more than 190,000. And those who were individually killed were recorded by charity organizations. That number amounted to more than 150,000. The total number of victims was finalized as “over 300,000.”   

(on page 875 of “Nanking Massacre Part 1 & Part 2”, compiled by Professor Sun Zhai Wei孫宅魏http://Nankingforever.web.infoseek.co.jp/sontakugi.html)

They counted 340,000 bodies but they concluded as “over 300,000”. Now how about the other one, the Tokyo Trials? It states;

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (November 4, 1948) (Chapter 8 on page 1015, http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/IMTFE/IMTFE-8.html)

“Estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000.

These figures do not take into account those persons whose bodies were destroyed by burning, or by throwing them into the Yangtze River, or otherwise disposed of by Japanese.

Here we have a difference of numbers. One gives “more than 300,000” and the other “more than 200,000”. But we can see that the Tokyo Trials give only part of the whole by its additional comments and is complemented by the following deposition presented in 1954 by a former Japanese soldier Captain Ohta Toshio who was in charge of disposing of dead bodies in Nanking. He was detained at war criminal prisons both in the Soviet Union and in Northeast China’s Shenyang and put to trial. He gave a detailed deposition and it says:

 “The Headquarters of the Second Port Affairs disposed of (threw into the Yangtze River or took away for cremation) some 100,000 dead bodies. Other Japanese forces stationed in Nanking also disposed of some 50,000 bodies.

(See page 83, “The Picture Collection of Nanking Massacre and International Rescue”, Chief Editor Zhu ChenShan朱成山
(http://Nankingforever.web.infoseek.co.jp/part3-83.html)

Now we can see in order to get the whole picture of the Chinese victims that we have to add “150,000” to Tokyo Trial’s number “more than 200,000”. Then we get the number “350,000”. To conclude, the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal gave “340,000” in its judgment and the Tokyo Trials virtually “350,000”. And the Chinese finalized the number as “over 300,000”. This number is supported by all the Chinese scholars; the late Professor Gao whom I met, Professor Sun Zhai Wei with his book of 952 pages and Zhu Chen Shan, curator of the Nanking Massacre Memorial Hall and I’m sure Professor Bu Ping who is invited to this conference will agree. How can anyone defeat this iron evidence?

On top of that, as I said, the Japanese government once accepted the following judgments in the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, which goes:

★ Evidence 4: San Francisco Peace Treaty (September 8, 1951)                 

By Article 11 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan accepted the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and of other Allied War Crimes Courts both within and outside Japan and agreed to carry out the sentences imposed thereby upon Japanese nationals imprisoned in Japan.

Now we can see that although Japan is violating the San Francisco Peace Treaty by not accepting the death toll “300,000”, no one seems to be blaming Japan for that. Because of that Japan feels safe and is trying to isolate itself from the world by repeating outrageous nonsense about their past war crimes. What we can do is make the Japanese government and its selected scholars stop their futile attempt to run away from their responsibility. I’m sure we can do it if we stand united and do something together to make a change and a better world.