Nanjing Massacre Museum

4. Outdoor Exhibit

Over 20,000 women were raped, and many were then killed. About one third of the structures in the city were burned down. Countless shops, stores, and residences were looted and sacked. Corpses littered the streets and were seen afloat on rivers for weeks. Even children, the elderly, and nuns suffered at the hands of the Japanese army. An estimated 300,000 civilians and unarmed Chinese soldiers were brutally slaughtered by beheading, burying alive, or burning the victims. Japanese soldiers were also reported to have conducted killing competitions and bayonet practice using live Chinese prisoners.

During the Second World War, Nanjing was the scene of one of that conflict's greatest and most terrible atrocities, the Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanjing. In December of 1937, Nanjing, at that time the capital of China, fell to the invading Japanese army. After taking the city, the Japanese army unleashed an orgy of violence on the Chinese inhabitants of the city. The massacres, indiscriminate killings, rapes, and tortures continued for much of the winter, leaving almost 300,000 dead. The massacre was shocking not only for the huge number of victims, but for the appalling sadism of the Japanese soldiers, who coldly killed their victims in a variety of gruesome ways.