The Nanking Massacre



Have you ever heard of this?  1937?  The Japanese raid this city in China and DESTROY it.  Destroy it's people (literally).  In just the first month, over 20,000 rapes of women and young girls were reported.  Horrifying that this is true, sad that I've never heard about it.

I watched a movie about this (The Flowers of War - last one of Christian Bale on netflix I haven't seen) and my mind was blown.  The story goes that there was a school for girls run by an American missionary that saved literally thousands of lives from rape and death.  The Japanese soldiers raided her school and demanded 13 girls to 'sing at a party' they were having.  Everyone knew, the girls included, that if they left with the soldiers, they would be used as sex slaves for the soldiers and eventually killed.  A group of women taking shelter in the school cut off their hair and donned the girls' school uniforms and went instead. The soldiers never recognized the difference and the women were taken and never to be heard from again. These women were former prostitutes and in my mind, they were heroes.

I immediately started researching it and have become entralled on this horrible event. I watched another film tonight about it that was more of a reading of journals and letters of the missionaries over there that tried so desperately to save so many.  It also included interviews from real survivors and soldiers (of both sides) recounting their experiences.  My hand was over my mouth many, many times.

The suffering and trials the human body and soul can come back from is just unimagineable.  God bless these people and the opportunity they have to share their story.