- An English translation of a classified Chinese document on the Nanjing Massacre - by: Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Translation from Chinese into English by:
Hu Yungong, & Cha Ruizhen
Robert Gray
Vancouver, Canada
February 1996
robgray@umich.edu
Photographs from the Nanjing Massacre in this document are courtesy of the
China News DigestNanjing Massacre Photo Archive
In 1962, scholars at Nanjing University's Department of History (Japanese history section) wrotethe bookJapanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing (ribendiguozhuyi zai nanjing de datusha) based on extensive materials they uncovered duringa two-year investigation into the Nanjing Massacre. After it was written, the book was labelled aclassified document (neibu ziliao) and could not be published openly.
In 1995, a scholar from mainland China who had obtained and carried this document to Americaabstracted portions of the text and made them available toChina News Digest for placement in the CND Nanjing MassacreArchive. In the winter of 1995/96, I translated these excerpts from the Chinese document andcreated this website.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Mr. Yim Tse, head Chineselibrarian at theUniversity of BritishColumbia Asian Library, without whom the present translation would have been impossible. His professional editing of my broken Chinese andtireless searching for original sources went above and beyond the call of duty. It was a greathonour and highly edifying experience to work with Mr. Tse on this translation.
All footnotes and notes within square brackets in the following translationare supplementary notes written by the translator. All Japanese names are written with thesurname first. Pinyin romanization is used throughoutexcept in cases when the Wade-Giles spelling is more familiar, such as"Kuomintang" rather than "Guomingdang."
Responsibility for any errors in this translation, of course, rests entirely with me.