Btw, if you're a person who is easily sickened this might not be for you to read.
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Tomorrow will be the seventh of July of the year 2007, also called 777. People have placed many different meanings for this day, but here is one I would like to tell you about right now.
Exactly 70 years ago, on July 7, 1937, Japan initiated war against China. In the 8 years that followed, the Japanese military invaded China, which was governed by a weak and useless regime, brutally torturing and murdering millions of civilians.
In Nan Jing (Nanking) alone, over 300 thousand civilians were killed in an event that is now characterized as a "massacre".
People of all ages were beheaded or buried alive in huge pits.
Conquerors snapped photographs of themselves holding civilians' heads.
Japanese officers openly engaged in friendly competitions to see who could kill the most Chinese in a certain amount of time. The one who had the largest amount of decapitated heads at the end won the game.
Pregnant women were gutted and other women were forced into sexual slavery to serve Japanese soldiers, as "comfort women".
Normal people like you or I were vivisected or experimented on for all manner of scientific endeavors.
A rough estimate of the lives lost during those 8 years of terror:
35 million.
We must not remain unaware of these facts. Even today, Japanese textbooks continue to teach the young that those 8 years were only a manner of "passing through", that the lives lost were trivial.
Mere trifles.
The Japanese never admitted their wrongdoings. They never bothered to apologize.
I do not demand revenge. All I ask for is awareness.
In a few hours, we'll be exactly 70 years after the beginning of that horror.
Not enough people know of what happened in Asia during those 8 years. And yet nearly 6 times more human beings died at the hands of the Japanese than in Nazi concentration camps.
I am not saying that one group of casualties is more important than another. But all victims of war crimes deserve to be remembered, even though the murderers may have gotten away without a scratch.
I believe that when the last survivors leave this earth, few will remember. For the government is not doing enough. They do not encourage teachers to inform the young of the past.
It is up to us. I have told you about what happened; now all I ask is that you tell another person.
Spread the word. Spread awareness.
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Further reading:
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[link]
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Edited by Mr. Pimpy, 06 July 2007 - 07:40 PM.
