At 8:45 a.m. I receive a note from Mr. Kikuchi, a very modest and charming Japanese translator, that the so-called "Safety Zone" is to be searched for Chinese soldiers. All the shelling and bombing we have thus far experienced are nothing in comparison to the terror that we are going through now. There is not a single shop outside our Zone that has not been looted, and now pillaging, rape, murder, and mayhem are occurring inside the Zone as well. There is not a vacant house, whether with or without a foreign flag, that has not been broken into and looted. The following letter to Mr. Fukuda provides a general notion of current circumstances and the cases mentioned in the letter are only a few out of a great many that we know about:
Mr. Tokuyashu Fukuda,
Attache to the Japanese Embassy,
Nanking.
Dear Sir:
Yesterday the continued disorders committed by Japanese soldiers in the Safety Zone increased the state of panic among the refugees. Refugees in large buildings are afraid to even go to nearby soup kitchens to secure the cooked rice. Consequently, we are having to deliver rice to these compounds directly, thereby complicating our problem. We could not even get coolies out to load rice and coal to take to our soup kitchens and therefore this morning thousands of people had to go without their breakfast.
Foreign members of the International Committee are this morning making desperate efforts to get trucks through Japanese patrols so these civilians can be fed. Yesterday foreign members of our Committee had several attempts made to take their personal cars away from them by Japanese soldiers. (A list of cases of disorder is appended.)
Until this state of panic is allayed, it is going to be impossible to get any normal activity started in the city, such as: telephone workers, electric plant workers, probably the water plant workers, shops of all kinds, or even street cleaning....
We refrained from protesting yesterday because we thought when the High Commander arrived order in the city would be restored, but last night was even worse than the night before, so we decided these matters should be called to the attention of the Imperial Japanese Army, which we are sure does not approve of such actions by its soldiers.
Most respectfully yours,
JOHN RABE LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE
Chairman Secretary
Almost all the houses of the German military advisors have been looted by Japanese soldiers. No Chinese even dares set foot outside his house! When the gates to my garden are opened to let my car leave the grounds-where I have already taken in over a hundred of the poorest refugees-women and children on the street outside kneel and bang their heads against the ground, pleading to be allowed to camp on my garden grounds. You simply cannot conceive of the misery.
I drive to Hsiakwan with Kikuchi to check on the electricity works and some of what rice remains. The electricity works looks to be intact and could probably be running again within a few days if the workers trusted the Japanese to protect them. I am willing to help, but given the incredible behavior of the Japanese soldiery, prospects are slim that I could drum up the 40 to 45 workers needed. And given the circumstances, neither would I like to risk having the Japanese authorities call one of our German engineers back from Shanghai.
I've just heard that hundreds more disarmed Chinese soldiers have been led out of our Zone to be shot, including 50 of our police who are to be executed for letting soldiers in.
to be continued ... 作者: 游水李 時間: 2008-12-26 23:14
The road to Hsiakwan is nothing but a field of corpses strewn with the remains of military equipment. The Communications Ministry was torched by the Chinese, the Y Chang Men Gate has been shelled. There are piles of corpses outside the gate. The Japanese aren't lifting a hand to clear them away, and the Red Swastika Society 24 associated with us has been forbidden to do so.
It may be that the disarmed Chinese will be forced to do the job before they're killed. We Europeans are all paralyzed with horror. There are executions everywhere, some are being carried out with machine guns outside the barracks of the War Ministry.
Katsuo Okazaki, the consul general, who visited us this evening, explained that while it was true that a few soldiers were being shot, the rest were to be interned in a concentration camp on an island in the Yangtze.
Our former school porter is in Kulou Hospital; he's been shot. He had been conscripted to do labor, was given a paper attesting to the work done, and on his way home was shot twice in the back for no reason at all. His old certificate of employment, issued by the German embassy, lies before me drenched with blood.
As I write this, the fists of Japanese soldiers are hammering at the back gate to the garden. Since my boys don't open up, heads appear along the top of the wall. When I suddenly show up with my flashlight, they beat a hasty retreat. We open the main gate and walk after them a little distance until they vanish in dark narrow streets, where assorted bodies have been lying in the gutter for three days now. Makes you shudder in revulsion.
All the women and children, their eyes big with terror, are sitting on the grass in the garden, pressed closely together, in part to keep warm, in part to give each other courage. Their one hope is that I, the "foreign devil," will drive these evil spirits away.
Rabe, John. Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe.
Westminster, MD, USA: Vintage Books, 2000. p 94-8. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/hkulibrary/Doc?id=10015540&ppg=95
Copyright 2000. Vintage Books. All rights reserved. 作者: 大燒 時間: 2008-12-27 00:04