I watching Nanking today — a documentary about the Japanese siege and occupation of the then-capital of China, Nanking, during World War II. Despite being a horrific example of war crimes committed during the 20th century, I don’t recall ever hearing anything about the Nanking Massacre in school.

Over 200,000 Chinese civilians were killed during the first 6 weeks of the Japanese occupation. Over 20,000 cases of rapes were reported.

The documentary includes readings by Western actors of the diaries of Westerners that stayed in Nanking and tried to shelter Chinese civilians from the onslaught of the Japanese soldiers that were indiscriminately raping and executing them. These readings are interspersed with eyewitness accounts from Chinese civilians and soldiers as well as Japanese soldiers.

This is what can happen if it becomes acceptable to think of other people as being less than human, whether on nationalistic, religious, ethnic, or racial grounds. This is the danger of uncritically accepting divisive propaganda.

The trailer for the film: