New evidence of the Nanjing Massacre which took place in late 1937
has emerged in a 28-page diary by Paul Scharffenberg, a diplomat at
the German embassy to China in Nanjing at the time.
According to Dai Yuanzhi, a senior reporter from China Youth
Daily who has researched the Nanjing Massacre for years, the
diary came from Anita Guenther, whose uncle Dr Karl Guenther was
working in Nanjing and helped many Chinese refugees during the
massacre.
The diary provides new evidence of the crimes committed by Japanese
invaders against the Chinese people.
During the six weeks of bloodshed and looting, the Japanese killed
over 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers and burned
thousands of houses, leaving the city in almost total
devastation.
The diary reveals that, in one atrocity, about 120 local residents
who had their hands tied together with wires were pushed into a
pond and drowned.
The Japanese invaders also warned foreign diplomats or missionaries
not to protect the Chinese who went into hiding at refugee camps
set up by international rescue organizations.
Shocked by the killings, foreign missions in Nanjing, including
those of the United States, Germany and Denmark, began to set up
security areas to protect the bullied Chinese refugees.
"The Japanese imposed a news blackout and restricted foreign
diplomats' movements in the city" to conceal their crimes from the
international community, the diary discloses.
During the past few years, more evidence of Japanese crimes in the
notorious Nanjing Massacre has been discovered.
So
far, diaries and reports by John Rabe, Dr George Rosen and
Christian Kroeger have surfaced as proof of the slaughter of
Nanjing people by the Japanese 66 years ago.
The discovery of Scharffenberg's diary offers further proof and
complements existing evidence of the Nanjing Massacre which
Japanese right-wingers have repeatedly denied in recent years, said
Zhang Lianhong, director of the Research Center on the Nanjing
Massacre with the Nanjing Normal University.
At
present, researchers and scholars are compiling a 30-volume book on
the Nanjing Massacre as a historical record and call for justice
and world peace.
(China Daily February 25, 2003)