A unique and gripping document: the recently discovered diaries of
a German businessman, John Rabe, who saved so many lives in the
infamous siege of Nanking in 1937 that he is now honored as the
Oskar Schindler of China.
As the Japanese army closed in on the city and all foreigners
were ordered to evacuate, Rabe felt it would shame him before his
Chinese workers and dishonor the Fatherland if he abandoned them.
Sending his wife to the north, he mobilized the remaining
Westerners in Nanking and organized an "International Safety Zone"
within which all unarmed Chinese were to be -- by virtue of
Germany's pact with Japan -- guaranteed safety. As hundreds of
thousands of Chinese streamed into the city, the Japanese army
began torturing, raping, and massacring them in untold numbers. All
that stood between the Chinese and certain slaughter was Rabe and
his committee, and it is thought that he saved more than 250,000
lives.
When the siege lifted in 1938 and Rabe finally felt able to
leave, the Chinese gave him a banner that called him their Living
Buddha, or Saint. Back home in Germany, he wrote Adolf Hitler to
describe the Japanese atrocities he had witnessed. Two days later,
the Gestapo arrested him. He was not sent to the camps. As it
turned out, Rabe survived the war and the starvation that followed
because the Chinese government learned that he was alive, and
Madame Chiang Kai-shek had food parcels sent to him.
General
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