I read this news this morning and felt very sad about it. Iris Chang, basically a wunderkind journalist and author, who wrote the international bestseller The Rape of Nanking (a horrific and very important book – if you haven’t read it) was found dead on Tuesday morning of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Damn.
She was younger than I am. She has a 2 year old son. She had recently been hospitalized for depression, but the hospitalization did nothing to help her. The depression continued. It must have gotten too much to bear.
A very important voice, she had. Read The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II
Iris Chang was called “The Woman Who Wouldn’t Forget”.
Here is her website if you would like to read more about this extraordinary young woman.
Thank you for your books, Miss Chang. You will be missed.
This is a sad loss. It is ironic that the news comes on the same day as Arafat’s death. Iris Chang had more dignity, worth, and human decency in any atom of her flesh than that murderous thief had in his whole body. I hope she has found the peace that eluded her in life.
Her face is kind of hauntingly happy and beautiful … I had no idea she struggled with such depression.
Very sad.
sweet, use someone’s death to vilify another dead person according to your political agenda! classy move, DBW!
anyway, is the picture you’re referring to the one with the sword in the…?
if i’d been through what she’d been through i’d probably have killed myself a lot sooner. it’s hard to live with stuff like that.
I feel very sad for her husband and baby son, too. It’s just … hard to know what to say about all of that.
DBW is a good friend of mine, Beth. Please don’t inter-comment attack. If you’ve got a problem with the opinions of others, find a civil way to say it.
Beth:
Yes – the sword picture. That’s the one. It just makes me shiver.
Sorry, I’m not done yet – thinking Arafat is a murderous thug has nothing to do with a “political agenda”. I had the same thought as DBW did – strange, and sad, that this hopeful journalist and historian would die in the same week as that terrorist scumbag.
Ms. Chang was a tenacious and gifted writer.
I learned a great deal from her, some of which, try as I might, I can never forget (such as that picture, red). On the other hand, she lifted the veil of the Asian experience in America, a heritage too long shuffled to the back pages of our collective history. I thank her for taking me places that I’d never been before.
Rest in peace.
spd rdr:
And I thank you for the heads-up about this. I needed the reminder.
God damn. Chang’s The Rape of Nanking is unforgettable, one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read.
I know, Bill. She has done us all a great service.
My comments about Arafat weren’t meant to be overtly political. I was making a human judgment based on his volatile and, to me, reprehensible history. I was simply remarking that it was ironic that I found out that someone as admirable and decent as Iris Chang had died the same day that the airwaves are full of praise and adoration for someone I find much less admirable.
By the way, Sheila, thank you for the vigorous defense. As you know, I am not trying to start any problem here.
Japan might start to atone by putting a monument to her across from Yasukuni. That would practically place it on the wall of the Imperial Palace moat.
I love Japan, but there are some serious historical issues that need to be addressed in their educational and political systems before I’m willing to admit that country back into full membership in the Civilized Nations club.
I’m just big on civility, I guess. Beth is also a wonderful writer, her blog on the Red Sox is classic – but to anyone who is a relatively new reader of this blog, you should know: I’m big on civility. I’m not just big on it, I’m fanatical about it. Especially because I have folks of all political stripes commenting here.
i didn’t mean for my comment to be an “attack”, but i thought it was unfair to drag the arafat thing into a discussion about chang. unfair to her, i mean.
but it was probably misplaced anyway, because i’ve just been hearing / reading / seeing arguments / opinions on arafat all day, and it’s gotten aggravating. i apologize that my tone was inappropriate.
meanwhile, that japan monument thing…i dunno. seems like too little too late. and i’m sure miss chang, who tried to be a voice for the victims of those events, wouldn’t want the statue to be to her, but to those she was advocating for.
Speaking of a nation atoning for its sins … I recently saw a copy of Peter Balakian’s new book about the Armenian genocide in Barnes & Noble and I really really want to read it. His “Black Dog of Fate” is a great book.
These horrible events didn’t happen all that long ago – and yet – whoosh, it’s like it never happened.
Balakian apparently tells stories in his book (which is about America’s response to that genocide and the Armenian diaspora trying to shine a light on the horrors) – but anyway, Balakian talks about Turkish immigrants to this country, in the 60s, 70s – coming here and realizing, for the first time what their country had done to Armenia. They had had NO idea.
A scary thought.
I’m a tireless history reader, and have few illusions about man’s capacity to brutalize. I’ve interviewed concentration camp survivors, Killing Fields survivors, read the memoirs of a boy who shot his way out of Sobibor, read the entire B’Nai B’rith “Black Book” of Nazi atrocities when I was 14 – the gamut of man’s urge to eliminate his fellow man.
And yet “Rape of Nanking” disturbed above and beyond the call of all of the other books and interviews and footage of the last century’s horrors. A story where the *Nazi* is the shining light of hope for humanity… It left *me* depressed.
I remember reading the epilogue from RON, and sensing the lingering, unable-to-disbelieve horror she felt after digging into the story. I often wondered how Chang co-existed with those images in her mind for all those years.
Not well enough.
Black Dog of Fate – THAT’s the name of the book! I heard about it, and have been wanting to remember it for months.
mitch:
Your last comment about Chang reminds me of a moment from “Shoah” – that horrible amazing documentary about the Holocaust. One of the survivors interviewed said something like:
“If you tasted my sweat, it would poison you.”
That’s not the exact line – but … the way this man said it … it was basically: my whole soul was so poisoned by what I saw and experienced that my blood, my sweat, my tears are contaminated.
It was beyond horrible – it goes into that place of no words. No words.
Mitch:
have you read it?? It’s his memoir of growing up the son of Armenian immigrants – all of whom fled the genocide – and it wasn’t until he was a man in his 20s that he really started to understand what had happened …
Oh, you have GOT to read it.
His latest book is more of a history book, the response of America to the plight of Armenia – but the memoir is not to be missed.
//A story where the *Nazi* is the shining light of hope for humanity//
huh? (haven’t read the book…fill me in)
Mitch, there was a Japanese consul in my beloved Lithuania who put the Nazis to shame:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005594
I think that those regimes sidelined people with strong morals into positions of little authority far from the regime’s area of concern. And those marginalized people were then given the chance to do good in Nanjing and Vilnius, and in other areas.
Beth, the Japanese rightist press villified Chiang, so they do owe her a monument, right across from where those bozos go every national holiday to bow to the Class A war criminals buried in Yasukuni. IMO, monuments to the fallen Chinese belong in Nanjing (paid for in Yen). But a monument to the Chinese and Korean conscripts who died in the Imperial Army belongs in Yasukuni. Hah.
Beth – apology accepted. I am, admittedly, very sensitive about that stuff here. As DBW can attest from past experience. :)
Carry on.
John –
So what you are talking about is a cultural amnesia in Japan … is that right? That’s kind of what I was getting at with my little comment on Turkey and the genocide.
These kids of Turkish immigrants – only 30 years after the thing had happened – had never heard of it.
Cultural amnesia is only the half of it. The rightists claim that Japan was in the right, freeing the peoples of Asia from the white hordes. Now, if you look at Mark Twain’s writings on the Boxer rebellion, you see where some of that sentiment came from, but it’s not borne out by the facts of WWII. The rightists in Japan do more than forget, they are the equivalent of those who deny the Holocaust.
When you look at Sugihara’s careeer, you see Japan did not elevate him as someone to emulate in post-war society. He died in obscurity, and only receives honor in Israel. I found out about him in Lithuania, and never heard of him when I was in Japan
Red – Haven’t read it – I read a review – but I’m very familiar with the Armenian story. My hometown in North Dakota had a little colony of diasporan Armenians (the town’s current mayor is one of them), and I grew up hearing bits and pieces of the story. I DO want to read it, though.
My mother lived in Turkey for five years, and was surprised to learn that Turks learn nothing of it.
Beth: A low-level trade delegate in the German consulate in Shanghai, who was a low-level Nazi party member, was the big hero of the Rape. He sheltered tens of thousands of Chinese in the European section of Shanghai, and roamed the streets, breaking up beatings and killings and rapes armed with nothing but his booming voice and his swastika armband (which the Japanese respected enough to obey). He worked with a tiny group of American missionaries, foreign diplomats, and businessmen to try to save who they could – but because of his Nazi identity, he was able to get the best results (some of the missionaries were beaten, and I think a few disappeared, if memory serves). It’s a jarring concept – a Nazi with an intense sense of morals and humanity. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, he was a party member more out of convenience than ideology.
Gosh I had no idea Iris Chang was so young. From reading The Rape of Nanking I had an image of a much older woman, who remembered the event. I am truly sad that the world has lost such a wonderful writer.
>Yes – the sword picture. That’s the one. It just makes me shiver.
>Posted by red at November 11, 2004 03:49 PM
I found this blog today. I give my comments to some of those displayed
here.
I do not know which pictures you are referring to. However, many of the
photographs Chang used in the book are known to be quite misleading or
at least not related to (fourth) Nanjing Incident. As to the book, I
find Hata’s criticism very convincing, which you can find at:
http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/Nanjing/nanjing4.html
Hata also traced Chang’s photo, in which she implied that the
women on the photo were rounded up by IJA (Imperial Japanese Army) and
were used as sex slaves.
http://www.history.gr.jp/nanking/chang.jpg
to the original photo of Asahi Graph published in Japan on 1937 Nov 10,
which says the villagers were now protected by IJA and could live in
peace without fearing pillage by rogue Chinese Army or words to that
effect.
http://www.history.gr.jp/nanking/hata5.jpg
Of course it is possible that the picture was used for IJA propaganda,
but anybody can understand that (fourth) Nanjing incident which took
place a couple of months later (late-Dec 1937 to Feb 1938) did not
produce the photograph. The published photograph in 1937 was
immediately used in KMT propaganda in 1938 and in later times, and Chang
picked up the photograph from one of KMT graphic series.
By the way, Hata is considered to be a “moderate” scholar.
>Japan might start to atone by putting a monument to her across from
>Yasukuni. That would practically place it on the wall of the Imperial
>Palace moat.
>Posted by John at November 11, 2004 04:16 PM
Yasukuni is not facing the palace. Chidorigafuchi national memorial
is, which is a place to preserve ashes of unknown soldiers.
>I think that those regimes sidelined people with strong morals into
>positions of little authority far from the regime’s area of concern. And
>those marginalized people were then given the chance to do good in
>Nanjing and Vilnius, and in other areas.
>
>Beth, the Japanese rightist press villified Chiang, so they do owe her a
>monument, right across from where those bozos go every national holiday
>to bow to the Class A war criminals buried in Yasukuni. IMO, monuments
>to the fallen Chinese belong in Nanjing (paid for in Yen). But a
>monument to the Chinese and Korean conscripts who died in the Imperial
>Army belongs in Yasukuni. Hah.
>Posted by John at November 11, 2004 04:38 PM
Sugihara Chiune was a minor figure in Lithuania at the time. Even
though his disobedience was not supported by the Japanese government,
the government was not very much interested in rampant racism/anti-
semitism in Europe or elsewhere either. That is why his irregular
activities were connived by the government.
You are completely ignorant of what is in Yasukuni. No body of what-
so-ever is BURIED in Yasukuni. It is a Shinto place, and it has NAMES of
dead people on paper. People do not go to Yasukuni on every national
holiday, but on Aug 15, or Spring and Autumn Shrine festivals, or on any
other day they like.
Yasukuni is not dedicated to Class A war convicts. It is dedicated to
over two million people dead in wars of modern Japan, including:
elementary school children who were on an unarmed evacuation ship from
Okinawa, which was sunk by a torpedo released by a US submarine; female
telephone workers in Sahalin who killed themselves before they were
raped by Soviet Red Army, and so on. Yasukuni has two million faces and
stories of two million dead. It is also dedicated to enemies who are
now dead in the wars Japan has fought.
By the way, those who did not receive capital punishment in Tokyo
Tribunal were not in Yasukuni. Among them is Shigemitsu Mamoru, who
was sentenced for several years in prison. He is one of the two
Japanese who signed surrender paper on Missouri in September 1945 (the
other is General Umetsu). He has written a great memoir of the time
(1925-1945) and became a foreign minister later. No Japanese law, from
Constitution down, treats the guilty in Tokyo Tribunal as guilty.
>Cultural amnesia is only the half of it. The rightists claim that Japan
>was in the right, freeing the peoples of Asia from the white hordes.
>Now, if you look at Mark Twain’s writings on the Boxer rebellion, you
>see where some of that sentiment came from, but it’s not borne out by
>the facts of WWII. The rightists in Japan do more than forget, they are
>the equivalent of those who deny the Holocaust.
>Posted by John at November 11, 2004 04:45 PM
Sorry, I do not think “cultural amnesia” is a correct term here for
several reasons. First, (fourth) Nanjing Incident is widely known in
Japan, recounted in numerous ways. Second, there is a diametrical
difference in Holocaust and Nanjing. Nanjing is basically collateral
damage caused during the act of war, while Holocaust is a systematic
genocide during the peace time — the Jews were not fighting with the
Germans. Nanjing offense is closer to Hiroshima atomic bombing, in a
sense it is an effort to end the war, even though Hiroshima or other
numerous US air raids in WWII were much more indiscriminate. Or, it is
much closer to what is happening in Fallujah today. It is a guerrilla
war in a defended city. I wonder if there is zero civilian casualties
in Fallujah if the military action is performed by what-you-call a
civilized country.