Nanjing Massacre Museum

7. Outdoor Exhibit

The Nanjing Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanjing, was a genocidal war crime committed by the Japanese military in Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted at least until early February 1938. Estimates of the death count vary, with most reliable sources holding that 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians were massacred in this period. Japanese officials lied about civilian death figures at the time, and some Japanese ultra nationalists are still active in attempting to deny that the killings ever occurred.