This film provides an introduction to 'the Rape of Nanking' and other Japanese atrocities in China during the second Sino-Japanese War (running up to and including World War II). Following the fall of Nanking on 13 December 1937, the Japanese army raped up to 80,000 women and killed an estimated 300,000 PoWs and civilians in the city over the following six weeks. It was to mark the start of a campaign in which they would slaughter at least 12.5m Chinese civilians in addition to casualties of war, through further massacres, slave labour, and large-scale use of biological weapons or 'germ warfare'.
The film features photographs from the period, cut with contemporary footage of sites where atrocities took place and interviews with survivors.
This Aegis Trust film was made in collaboration with the Global Alliance for the Preservation of the History of World War II in Asia (GA).