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Writing about Atrocity: WartimeAccounts and their Contemporary Uses*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

PARKS M. COBLE
PARKS M. COBLE*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Department of History, 622 Oldfather Hall, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588–0327, USA, Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In today's China, public memory of the War of Resistance againstJapan, 1937–1945, is more visible than ever. Museums, movies,television programmes, and commemorations focus heavily on the victimization ofthe Chinese people at the hands of the Japanese invaders. Japanese atrocities,particularly the Nanjing Massacre, are at the centre of much of thisremembering. But what of the wartime period? How did journalists and writersdiscuss Japanese atrocities? This paper finds that most wartime writing stressedthe theme of ‘heroic resistance’ by the Chinese ratherthan China's victimization at the hands of Japanese. Exceptions tothis approach included efforts to publicize Japan's action to Westernaudiences in the hope of gaining support for China's cause, and arelated focus on the bombing of the civilian population by the Japanese. Thispaper suggests major differences between the current approach to remembering thewar and to writing during the war itself.

Type
Part II: Remembering China's War with Japan: The Wartime Generation in Post-war China and East Asia
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 2: China in World War II, 1937–1945: Experience, Memory, and Legacy , March 2011 , pp. 379 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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