The Rape of Nanking

11.15.2004 –Birmingham, Alabama -3:30PM

Iris Chang is Dead at 36

What a sad weekend indeed. Not only was I reminded of the loss of my dear friend Maria Consuelo to suicide, her birthday was on Saturday, but here I am reminded this weekend too of yet another wonderful human being who served us all well by exposing a piece of history that most of the world would have rather preferred to have kept covered. Iris Chang shot herself a few days ago. She was found dead in a vehicle on the side of a California highway with a self inflicted gun shot wound.

I think I would have enjoyed meeting this woman. Her book “The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII” exposed Japanese atrocities against innocent Chinese in their occupation of Nanking (now Nanjing) in 1937. I think the Japanese hated her for doing this. Up until her 1997 book the story was untold and hardly referred to. Imagine the Japanese killing 300,000 innocent people and raping 80,000 plus women. Even the Nazi’s were said to have been shocked at the deeds. Here’s Chang writing about the event:

"Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them torn apart by German shepherds. So sickening was the spectacle that even Nazis in the city were horrified."

She was depressed. Maybe she heard one too many sad story. People like Chang are called to do what they do. She once remarked that it didn’t matter if she made one penny off that book. The history needed to be told. I love people like this. They are the true unsung heroes in our culture of greed and self-seeking egocentrism. Why is it that people like this take their lives and the ones we wish would do so live on to lead governments, cause mayhem with their politically driven agendas, and promote themselves at every turn – all for the cause of “the people.” Yeah, right. My ass!

Rei