Iris Chang

                              2006   

    Close to 300 entries from around the world responded to the essay contest organized by the family and friends of the late Iris Chang as a memorial to the historian, journalist and award winning author. 

    The subject of the contest was how Chang’s book, The Rape of Nanking, the Forgotten Holocaust, made a personal impact. 

    Some of the contestants described how the book resonated with traumatic experiences of their own.  Some compared the Japanese atrocities of WWII to more recent atrocities of Rwanda, Darfur and Iraq.  Many re-examined what is truth, justice and humanity. 

    A young mother from Uganda, now studying in Canada, couldn’t fathom why atrocities and strife in Northern Uganda that she witnessed had been ignored by the world.  From the book, she learned hers was not the only one the world ignored.

    A Belarus journalism student drew a parallel with Iris Chang’s heroic effort to bring truth and justice to the victims of the Nanking Massacre and the author from her homeland who called the senseless war in Afghanistan to the attention of the people of Belarus.

    A young American Jewish woman who grew up with an intimate knowledge of the Jewish Holocaust was appalled that nothing was ever taught about the Nanking Massacre.  As if to make a personal atonement, she is now studying Chinese and living in China.  She has made it her mission to preserve the memory of the Forgotten Holocaust along with the Jewish one.

    An American student who loves Japan went there as an exchange student.  She contrasted the portrayal of the Japanese as victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with, as her home Dad demonstrated, the absolute refusal to examine their country’s role as the WWII aggressor.  She was shaken by Japan’s lack of remorse and total ignorance among her fellow students about the war crimes of their grandfathers.

    Reading the Rape of Nanking helped a young Hawaiian American of mixed Chinese ancestry put into context her grandparents’ stories of the Japanese slaughter of 12,000 civilians on an island in southern China a few months after the Nanking massacre of 300,000.  She decided to emulate Chang and write a book, Slaughter at San Zao.

    The book also reminded a young man of Filipino ancestry of the horror of Japanese brutalities that accompanied the occupation of Philippines.  Tales of unspeakable atrocities were witnessed by his grandparents.  “Forgetting will only conceal the truth,” he avowed.

    Many contestants are high school students.  Nearly all of them are inspired by Chang.  Because of her book, they now want to major in international relations or journalism and launch a career in finding truth and seeking justice anywhere in the world.

    Many of the young people’s essays drew the analogy between the forgotten Holocaust and atrocities of today.  They pointed out that the world has also ignored Rwanda, Darfur and Iraq.  Iraq is where American soldiers have been accused of rape and slaughter of civilians.  The young commentators railed at humankind’s inability to learn from the past and impotence to alter the present.

    An African-American military officer emphasized that we must not become desensitized in the face of heinous acts against humanity.  Only if we were willing to take a stand and speak out against brutality, could we hope to reverse the injustices.

    China marked September 18, 1931 as the beginning of WWII when Japan invaded Manchuria, the northeastern part of China, well over a decade before Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war.  Today, China’s landscape is dotted with wan ren keng, “mass burial pits,” where bones of slaughtered civilians continue to remind visitors of the atrocities of the Japanese Army.

    Hundreds of thousand deadly canisters of poison gas and chemicals remain buried in China and serve as constant reminders of Japan’s grim past.  In sixty years, the Japanese government has yet to live up to their commitment to remove the weapons of mass destruction left in haste at the end of the war.

    These abandoned canisters lurk in wells and pits where departing soldiers hid them.  Every time innocent civilians stumble across these all too real weapons of mass destruction and become casualties, we are reminded of the legacy of Japan’s brutal past. 

    The deadly toxins left by the retreating Japanese cannot be wished away.  Nor will the memories of Japan’s WWII crime against humanity fade.

    The new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has broken the diplomatic ice by visiting Beijing and Seoul within three weeks of taking office.  But he has said nothing of the rape and poison gas victims awaiting justice.  

    As this simple essay contest has shown, there will always be a young generation of social activists to remind Japan that true redemption can only be gained by rectifying the injustices committed by their predecessors.

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Dr. George Koo is an international business consultant and contributor of Pacific News Service.  He served as one of the preliminary round judges of the essay contest.  Winning essays will be announced on October 28 in Washington D.C. and can be found posted at  http://irischangmemorialfund.org.