Nanking Massacre Research Paper

Nanking Massacre “What connects two thousand years of genocide? Too much power in too few hands,” – Simon Wiesenthal. Genocide is the systematic mass killing of a specific group of people. For an event to be considered genocide, it must have the eight stages of genocide: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination, and denial. Nanking is an example of genocide because it included the eight stages. The Nanking Genocide was also known as the Rape of Nanking, which resulted great amount of deaths of people in China due to killing after rape, murder, looting, and many other ways.

Although the Nanking massacre only lasted from 1937-1938, there were many events that led up to this genocide. Before the Nanking
The main event that led up to this genocide was the Chinese troop’s strong resistance against the Japanese’s attempt to “conquer all of China in just three months,” (The History Place 1). The strong resistance of the Chinese troops upset the Japanese, making them losing their pride and now their “appetite for revenge was to follow at Nanking,” (The History Place 1). Due to Japan’s desire to get revenge on China, many horrific events occurred. One tragedy that happened was “mass execution of captives,” (Viklund, Nanking Massacre, 2). This was an event where the Japanese killed anyone man who was suspected to be a Chinese soldier. After a large number of Chinese soldiers were captured to be executed, “other soldiers who had not been discovered disguised themselves as civilians,” hoping not to get caught by the Japanese (Viklund, Nanking Massacre, 2). In many situations, captives were shot by machine guns, bayoneted, or even burned alive. This event was also known as “the genercide against Chinese men,” (Jones, The Nanjing Massacre). Although there are many more horrific events, the rape in Nanking was the event that catches everyone’s attention. The Nanking Massacre had an “estimate of