Beijing Review: The unfinished battle against historical amnesia

BEIJING, Oct. 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The number of living registered survivors of the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre decreased to just 25 after Xiong Shulan passed away in late September at the age of 94, the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders announced on September 29.

In mid-August, Einar Tangen visited the memorial hall and met with one of the remaining survivors. He later read Chinese writer He Jianming's book Nanjing 1937: Memories of a Massacre and shared his reflections on the atrocity:

He Jianming's Nanjing 1937: Memories of a Massacre is more than a historical account; it is an act of bearing witness. From its opening pages, the book establishes itself not as a dispassionate academic treatise but as a visceral immersion into the profound human tragedy that unfolded following the Japanese occupation of Nanjing in December 1937.

By weaving together a stream-of-consciousness narrative from Chinese survivor testimonies and the diaries of Japanese soldiers and witnesses from other countries, He forces the reader to confront the chaos, terror and brutality of the event on a personal level. This stylistic choice is a deliberate moral stance. It asserts that the Nanjing Massacre is not, and cannot be, reduced to a sterile debate over numbers and timelines. It is a foundational chapter of national suffering for China, a crime against humanity whose denial and minimization are perpetuated by the ideological descendants of the very fascism that enabled it.

The enduring relevance of He's work lies in its unflinching confrontation with a painful truth: The forces that orchestrated the massacre have never been fully eradicated. They have simply adapted, shifting from military aggression to a sophisticated campaign of historical revisionism.

The anatomy of denial

Perhaps the most critical contribution of He's book is its implicit, and at times explicit, examination of the ideological underpinnings of the massacre and its subsequent denial. The testimony of a Japanese soldier, included in the narrative, is particularly illuminating. He describes the systematic process of hazing, humiliation and indoctrination that transformed ordinary men into remorseless killers. This ritualized violence was the machinery of fascism in action--a deliberate erosion of empathy and a cultivation of blind obedience and cruelty toward designated "others." This same fascist logic is the thread that connects the perpetrators of 1937 to the denialists of today.

Contemporary relevance

The final, chilling lesson of Nanjing 1937: Memories of a Massacre is its contemporary relevance. He's work is ultimately a warning that the signs of fascism are not relics of the past. The mechanisms he exposes--media manipulation, nationalist fervor, the dehumanization of perceived enemies and the demand for blind obedience to state power--are alarmingly present in our world today.

He's Nanjing 1937: Memories of a Massacre is an essential and courageous work. It succeeds not only in memorializing the victims and documenting the historical truth of the atrocity but also in exposing the enduring and dangerous ideology that seeks to deny it. The book compellingly argues that the battle over the memory of Nanjing is the same battle against fascism that was fought in the last century and must be fought again today. It is a sobering reminder that without a truthful accounting of history, the pathologies of the past are doomed to repeat themselves. From a Chinese perspective, this book is more than a history; it is an act of preserving national memory and a defiant stand for justice in the face of a rising tide of global amnesia. Its relevance is as urgent now as it has ever been.

Website：http://www.bjreview.com/Opinion/Voice/202509/t20250929_800416927.html

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