The Rape of Nanking: Six Weeks That Shocked the World

In December 1937, Japanese forces captured Nanking (now Nanjing), the capital of Nationalist China. What followed was six weeks of systematic atrocities so extreme that even Nazi officials in the city were horrified. Japanese soldiers massacred an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 civilians and prisoners of war, raped tens of thousands of women and girls (aged 8 to 80), looted and burned the city, and engaged in acts of cruelty that shocked the world.

The violence was systematic and deliberately terroristic. Japanese commanders gave soldiers permission to do whatever they wanted. Soldiers competed to see who could kill 100 people fastest with a sword - newspapers published the "scores." Families were forced to watch atrocities before being killed. Bodies f ...