Nanjing Massacre Museum

9. Plaque Detailing the Uncovering of Bodies

While the Japanese government has acknowledged the massacre did occur, some Japanese nationalists have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such civilian atrocities ever occurred. Denial of the massacre, and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings, has become a staple of Japanese nationalist discourse. In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, and only a minority denies the atrocity. Nonetheless, revisionist accounts have often created controversy that has reverberated in the media, particularly in China. The 1937 massacre and the extent of its coverage in Japanese school textbooks continue to trouble Sino-Japanese relations.

"Thousands of men were led out of the [Nanjing International Safety] Zone, ostensibly for labor battalions, and lined up and machine-gunned. Sometimes groups were used for bayonet exercises. When the victors grew bored with such mild sport they tied their victims, poured kerosene over their heads, and cremated them alive. Others were taken out to empty trenches, and told to simulate Chinese soldiers. Japanese officers then led their men in assaults to capture these "enemy positions" and bayoneted the unarmed defenders."