Nanking Page #5

my dear children and grandchildren.

I know you're all praying for me today.

I feel as if I'm surrounded

by loving thoughts.

Believe me,

I have a prayer in my heart

for all of you, as well.

It seems like anything

but Christmas Eve.

It is sort of tough to keep

Japanese soldiers from looting a hospital

in the center of what was,

a few weeks ago, a great city,

while the rest of the family

is scattered all over the globe.

My baby will be six months old in four days,

and I have only seen her

for seven weeks of that time.

It would be pleasant to close the year

with some sort of

brighter outlook for the next,

but we seem to be closing

on a note of deepest gloom,

without a glimmer of light ahead.

The only consolation is that

it can't be worse.

They can't kill as many people,

as there aren't any more to kill.

Christmas Eve, Nanking, China, 1937.

What I am about to relate

is a story which I feel must be told,

even if it is seen by only a few.

In these two short weeks,

we here in Nanking

have been through a siege.

The Chinese army has left, defeated,

and the Japanese have come in.

On that day, Nanking was still

the beautiful city we were so proud of,

with law and order still prevailing.

Today, it is a city laid waste, ravaged,

completely looted, much of it burned.

Complete anarchy has reigned for 10 days.

It has been a hell on earth.

Not that my life has been

in serious danger at any time,

though turning lust-mad, drunken soldiers

out of houses

where they were raping the women

is not altogether a safe occupation.

Nor does one feel

perhaps too sure of himself

when he finds a bayonet at his chest

or a revolver at his head,

and knows it is handled by someone

who heartily wishes him out of the way.

The Japanese army is anything but pleased

at our being here.

They wanted no observers.

But to have to stand by,

while even the very poor are having

their last possessions taken from them,

their last coin, their last bit of bedding,

while thousands of disarmed soldiers

who had sought sanctuary within,

together with many hundreds

of innocent civilians,

are taken out before your eyes to be shot

or used for bayonet practice.

And we have to listen to the sounds

of the guns that are killing them.

Over a thousand women kneel before you,

crying hysterically,

begging you to save them

from the beasts who are preying on them.

To stand by and do nothing,

while your flag is taken down and insulted?

Not once, but a dozen times.

And your own house is being looted?

And then to watch

the city you have come to love

and the institutions

to which you'd planned to devote your best

deliberately and systematically

burned by fire?

This is a hell I had never before envisaged.

And we keep asking ourselves,

"How long can this last?"

Day by day, we are assured by the officials

that things will be better soon,

that "we will do our best."

But each day

has been worse than the day before.

January 1st, a new year filled with hope.

There was a worship ceremony

at 8:
30 this morning.

In the solemn air, the trumpets sounded,

and the Japanese flag was raised.

It is moving beyond words,

with the swords sparkling in the rising sun.

We saluted the military flag,

gave three cheers

for our Emperor and Empress.

January 4. It is just three weeks

since Nanking was taken,

and, as yet, there has been no foreigner

allowed in or out.

The Japanese try to cover things up

wherever it's even vaguely feasible.

And the ban on anyone entering or leaving

is one of their ways of keeping the world

ignorant of Nanking's present state.

We have now received news

that the Japanese want to close

all refugee camps on February 4th.

The refugees are supposed to return

to the devastated city.

And it doesn't matter

where they live amid the ruins.

This could be awful, but we don't know

how to avert this calamity.

The military has all the power.

At 3:
00 p.m., two embassy police came

and asked us to get all the refugees together

so they could explain to them

the plan of returning to their homes.

A Chinese man was with them who

used to be a low-level Chinese army officer.

In order not to be killed,

he became a Japanese collaborator.

When he was alone with Miss Vautrin,

he told her not to let the young girls go.

He wept as he spoke.

Their real object

is to get these people away from us,

who have been their protection

during these terrible weeks.

If they do not go back,

the refugees in camps

will be driven out by soldiers.

Some of the refugees

have registered and gone home,

hoping to live there peacefully.

But, unexpectedly,

when the refugees arrived home,

Japanese soldiers were seen,

hunting for women.

I shall never bring pressure

on women to leave again.

My experience on that was too bitter.

One woman of 27, whom we urged

to go back to her husband,

was raped by three soldiers

within three hours after she left us.

I learned my lesson,

and shall not easily forget it.

We have the possibility of a massacre.

But I don't see myself staying out of sight

while soldiers use bayonets

on women and children who trusted us.

I scolded two Japanese soldiers.

The fellow in front was taking it all right,

but the one in back was a surly fellow.

He drew his bayonet,

and then he made a pass at my middle.

I stood my ground.

But since his first pass was unsuccessful,

he took his bayonet

and held it to my neck for a moment.

He muttered something in Japanese,

and jerked his bayonet forward.

When I ducked my head back, it drew blood.

I fear that the military

intends to clear the Zone by force.

The middle paths are the only open spot

left in the garden.

As they come outside,

they all fall to their knees,

and cannot be persuaded to get up

from the cold cement path

until I give the following speech.

"The Japanese have publicly announced

"that you must leave the refugee camps

in the Zone today.

"I personally shall not chase you away,

but what can I, a single foreigner, do?

"Nonetheless, I'll try

to prevent the Japanese from entering."

When I return home in my car today,

I am received with a royal salute.

My poor refugees

have formed two long lines.

Then all my 600 parishioners surround me

and give me a greeting written on a banner.

They all bow three times, and are very happy

when I bow my head in gratitude.

Then one of my Chinese friends

translates the greeting.

You are the living Buddha

for 100,000 people.

You have saved thousands of people

from danger and want.

May the favor of heaven be granted to you.

May God's blessing rest upon you.

As is obvious from the letters

that arrived for me yesterday

from Shanghai via the German Embassy,

people there have not the vaguest notion

of current conditions here.

And what do we do next?

We've about shot our bolts.

At 6:
40, I took the Japanese military

train to Shanghai.

I was crowded in with about as unsavory

a crowd of soldiers as one could imagine

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