Nanking----A hard hitting documentary

Nanking----A hard hitting documentary

It is sad and cruel for your people and city to be destroy and wasted.
In 1937, the Japanese army invaded China in a cruel war and after the fall of Shanghai, the soldiers headed for the capital Nanking. A group of Western foreigners led by John Rabe, Minnie Vautrin, Bob Wilson and George Fitch creates the “Safety Zone”, a refuge that is not bombed by Japanese planes, to protect thousands of refugees.

While Japanese soldiers arrive in the city on December 13, 1937, raping, killing and looting, the heroic group of Westerners defends the lives of approximately 250,000 Chinese, sacrificing their own freedoms and manages to tell the world about the war crimes committed by the army Japanese in Nanking

The harrowing, painful and impressive
“ Nanking ” tells the story of the genocide in Nanking in 1937 carried out by the Japanese army. At the end of the 90s, I saw the also impressive and disturbing “ Times of War ” (“Nanjing 1937”, also known as “Don't Cry, Nanking”) and I confess that it was the first time I heard about this massacre.

In the film “Story of a Massacre”, Canadian general Romeo Dellaire has a fantastic line when he says that “genocide is when there are freight trains, concentration camps, gas chambers”. In Hollywood, genocide is usually associated with the Jews in World War II and there are dozens of excellent films about this dark period in contemporary history. Other genocides are forgotten by this industry.

“ Nanking ” uses the letters and other documents written by the group of Westerners who created the Security Zone in a touching and emotional reading by great actors and actresses; disturbing and painful testimonies from survivors; a large number of footage from the period, in a wonderful research work; and a wonderful soundtrack by Kronos Quartet.

I immediately thought about how traumatic the lives of these survivors must have been after witnessing and experiencing such cruel war crimes. In Nanking there were Western observers who told the world part of what happened in this city; imagine in Shanghai and other small cities in the interior that were in the path of Japanese troops without having foreign testimony.

This group of expats shows the difference one individual can make. I really felt sad after watching this fantastic documentary even for the second time.