For those who have never heard of this lady’s name, she was a missionary who saved many students from Jinling Girls College in Nanjing (aka Nanking) from Japanese atrocities in WWII.
WWII involving the Japanese Imperial Army is one of the topics that I frequently find myself reading about, perhaps because this is a part of history that I have been most exposed to since childhood, and personally feels most strongly about, seeing that many of the problems looming between East Asian nations originated from historical debates surrounding this topic.
As a child, couldn’t believe what there could be people as cruel as the Japanese Imperial soldiers when I read about the war and saw related documentary on TV. I was used to hearing about my maternal grandmother’s sister who lost her life during the bombing of Shanghai by the Japanese army. The adults in the family told me of how she was so badly hurt that her intestines fell out of her gut. I was horrified.
But even that disgust and hatred did not stop me (and my contemporaries) from becoming a dedicated fan of Ultraman and Seiya, two very popular Japanese shows in China, probably because I was too young to understand the full scale of things that I was exposed to. I recall laughing out heart out when watching a very funny Japanese drama with my mother when I was about 8 or so. It was such a contradition. On one hand, lack of development in mainland Chinese entertainment industry meant that my generation (the so-called post 80s) was exposed to war dramas depicting the fight between courageous Chinese soldiers and ruthless Japanese invaders on a weekly if not daily basis. When we managed to see a movie in cinema once in a millenium, the popular choice was of course “Shining Little Red Star” (the story of a courageous little boy in his fight against Japanese invaders). On the other hand, we, well, at least, I was glued to our TV set every Wednesday for a glimpse of Ultraman. It was such a joy to watch the show and singing along with the theme song (even though the Japanese lyrics at the time made no sense to us Chinese kids) was so much fun. I was so addicted to the show that when I had to leave China for Australia at the age of nine, I burst into tears upon realising that I probably won’t ever get to see the show again.
Little did I know about the complex problems between Japan and China, in fact Japan and rest of Asia.
By chance, I came to master Japanese and became a great fan of modern Japanese culture. I probabaly invest more of my time in investigating the latest trends in Japan than anything else, be it Chinese or Australian. But one thing has always disturbed me deeply, that is, anything to do with the war seems like something that most Japanese people would prefer not to talk about, or if they do talk about it, it is as though Japan was justified in its actions during wartime. The more time I spent browsing blogs, mixi and 2ch, the more disturbed I became. It is not just that “Japan was forced into submission by the allies but didn’t actually do anything wrong” attitude, but also the deeply rooted rascism, in particularly towards Koreans and Chinese. I can’t say that anti-Japan sentiments do not exist in Korea and China, but such feelings are understandable since the people of both these countries remember (obviously) the atrocities they suffered in WWII (really not that long ago). But the prevailing ideology and sentiments in modern Japanese society, especially amongst the younger generation, suggests that any form of resolution between the major East Asian countries are unlikely in the near future.
Anyway, back to the point that triggered me to write this entry: Minnie Vautrin’s Diary.
I came across a title on google books called 南京大虐殺と日本人の精神構造 (Nanjing Massacre and Mental Structure of Japanese) by 津田道夫 (Michio Tusda) that explores the psychology of ordinary Japanese nationals during the war period and discusses some of the possible reasons why normally gentle people would turn into worst of the devils when they go onto the field. The version I came across on google books was a Chinese translation of this book, but I think I will try to find an original copy to have a read as I like to read originals whenever I can to avoid missing out on things lost through translation.
I had a look on the web to see if any more information is available (preferably Japanese) on this book or the author of this book, but failed to find much except that his father was a teacher during the war era and he drew upon many of his father’s diary entries when making his discussion points. I suppose this is not a result unexpected, as literature that leans towards the validation of Nanjing Massacre or encourages admittance of such atrocities are generally waved aside in Japan, either because people are not interested or because patriotic Japanese nationalists deem such work as lies and anti-Japan, and they promote it as such to the general public.
In any case, during my research online, I came across the translated version of Minnie Vautrin’s Diary on the Japanese Amazon site. I was surprised to see that it had a five star rating as this is something rare for books to do with Nanking. I scrolled down the page to take a look at the comments, and I found the following:
By Hiromi (ロンドン、ＵＫ) – レビューをすべて見る
南京安全区国際委員会の報告書や同委員長ジョン・ラーベの日記などから明らかなように、1937年12月13日の南京陥落前後から、中立のはずの安全区には市民服を着、武器を隠し持った中国軍敗残兵や便衣兵が数万人規模で潜んで敵対・反日宣伝行為に従事していた。
ヴォー トリンはこの点について故意にかどうか、全く触れていないが、当時安全区内に潜んでいた中国将校自身の「夜悪事を働いているのは中国兵」との証言や、女史 や国際委員会も認める日本軍の転進による駐屯兵士数の減少、「安全区外には兵士も難民も殆どいない」状況からしても、女史の言うところの「略奪・放火・強 姦（殺人は滅多に起こっていない）をしている兵士」とは中国兵である可能性が非常に高い。
女史が一番心配して解決に奔走していた「拉致された男達」の問題についても、中国軍の『拉夫』（戦場近辺で市民を誘拐し銃をいきなり持たせて兵士に仕立て上げる）の伝統を知っていれば犯人が誰かは自ずと明らかであろう。
実のところ、実際に女史や他の西洋人達が出会った日本兵や憲兵は、皆揃って「感じの良い」「友好的な」まじめそうな者ばかりであって、悪さをしているところは誰も実際には見ていない。
ヴォートリンや他の西洋人が「見た」という「事件」は、全てが「中国人に連れられて行ってみるとそこに『被害者』がいた」というヤラセの類であった。
また本書には、多くの中国人庶民（老百姓）による（日本兵に）略奪品を売る商売が繁盛していること、日本兵が探していたのは素人の女性でなく「花枯娘（娼婦）」であったこと、などなど、むしろ日本軍側の言い分を傍証する記述が多く見られる。
「客観的」であるが故に「決定的証拠」とされた南京の西洋人達の「目撃証拠」が実は『南京虐殺』の『反証』であるという（『否定派』の研究者がずっと主張してきた）事実を、本書は改めて世に晒した。
By ヘブン – レビューをすべて見る
南京事件に関する虐殺派、否定派。
それぞれの根拠はあるにせよ。
ここに現場にいた、そして南京の避難民に直接関わり、奔走した人間の克明な日記がある。これを読んで、南京では日本軍は虐殺しなかった。強姦は最小限にとどめられた。という見解に依然なるなら、もはや何を読んでもどんな証言を聞いても、その人は虐殺否定の先入観でしか見れないのだと思う。
もし一歩外で殺人と強姦のあれすさぶ危険で制限された環境の中にいて、あなたが克明な詳細な事件の真相を証拠立てることができるか？できないだろう。全部見たのか？見てないだろうと言われたらどう答えるだろう？
たしかにそのとうりかもしれない。
けれどもその時、南京では普通ではない何かが起こっていたのだ。・・・そういうことがこの日記にはしっかり書かれてある。
そしてそのような極限の環境の中で人権と安全のために身を尽くして活動した人々。
一読の価値アリです。
By pseudo-swicther – レビューをすべて見る
1937年12月から38年にかけての南京事件当時、南京市に踏みとどまって国際難民区の運営に携わったアメリカ人ミニー・ヴォートリンの日記は単なる史 料的価値のみならず大きな現代的意義をもっている。南京攻略戦は大都市への空爆が本格的に行なわれた最も初期の戦闘の一つであり、それゆえこの日記は「空 爆に耐える都市住民」の最も古い証言の一つだということになる。都市への空爆があたりまえとなり非戦闘員の犠牲が常態となった戦争の原型がここで描かれて いる。
また、ヴォートリンを含む第三国人たちが、限られたリソースを総動員して南京市民を守るために奔走する様子には感嘆を禁じえない（残念ながら、 その努力は完全に実を結ぶことはなかったのだが）。本書に日記が収録されている約4ヶ月間、平穏な日はほとんどなかったのである。彼女は中国人による不正 行為も率直に記録しており、他方友好的な日本人の訪問があった際にはきちんとその旨書き残していて、これが日記全体の記述の公平性を物語っている。「いま 南京で起こっていることを、日本の良識ある人びとに知ってもらえさえしたらよいのだが」（60頁）といった趣旨のことばが繰り返し記されている。約70年 遅れではあるが、彼女の願いが成就することを祈りたい。
These guys all appear to conclude that many of the atrocities that occurred in Nanjing were at the hands of Chinese soldiers and emphasised on the kindness of Japanese people present in Nanjing at the time. They concluded that all the evidences presented by Vautrin proved that there was no Nanjing Massacre.
It is true that even in wartime, there were Japanese nationals who felt that what the Japanese army did was wrong and did what they can to help others. It is also true that the word “massacre” must first of be clearly defined before it is used to describe any single event, and that now forms the basis for many counter-arguments against “Nanking Massacre”.
However, putting these two issues aside, I am just puzzled as to why is it that the conclusions drawn by these Japanese readers from the Japanese version of Vautrin’s Diary appear so different to the conclusions drawn by Chinese nationals and the English-speaking world based on the same diary, except in, respectively, Chinese and English?
A web search of “Minnie Vautrin” in English would return numerous accounts of how this courageous woman did all she could to save the Chinese girls from Japanese atrocities, her witness accounts of the horrendous fate suffered by many of her students and Chinese acquaintances. I am yet to read in detail any of her actual diary entries, but to have two such vastly different reactions to the same set of witness evidences is just bizzarre.
If there has been selective exclusion of parts of her diary or mistranslations of her diary in any of the versions, that the motive by the particular translator is questionable. If this variation stems from cultural background and historical understanding issues that that is also something that should be addressed. But essentially, Vautrin’s diary entries should evoke the same sort of reaction from her readership regardless of what language version they are reading. The fact that this is not the case as of now indicates that something has gone very wrong.
