Marking the 80th anniversary of the brutal massacre in Nanjing by Japanese invaders during WWⅡ, Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation and A + E Networks in the US have co-produced a one-hour docu-drama The Scars of Nanking: the brave who stayed behind.
Poster of The Scars of Nanking: the brave who stayed behind
This documentary that was co-produced by China and the US didn’t apply the traditional mode of the massacre genre. It simply tells the stories witnessed by dozens of foreigners who stayed in Nanjing during the brutal massacre and protected local citizens in any possible ways.
It is the first time that the Massacre has been shot in westerners’ perspectives. And it is also the first time that Nanking Massacre has been presented on the screen of western mainstream media. More audiences in the world will know what happened 80 years ago in Nanjing through this documentary.
Today, we introduce you another excerpt of the U.S. version of The Scars of Nanking.
To expose the truth of Nanjing Massacre and to make the western world realize what had happened, some westerners tried to protect the evidence at the cost of their lives. To take the movie film of atrocity cases shot by Father John Magee out of Nanking, George Fitch sewed the movie film into the lining of his coat.
Through 1938, George Fitch had a tour across the United States and showed the film to US senators, army officials and churches, publicizing Nanjing Massacre to his countrymen and calling for the US government to take some actions against the Japanese. Authorities think his actions did have some impact on his fellow Americans and Japan was generally seen as a wicked enemy even before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The names of the foreigners who’ve helped Nanjing people will live on. They helped shelter more innocent people and the situation in Nanjing could only be worse if without them. More importantly, they’ve been through the Nanjing Massacre, witnessed the atrocities, and made them public to the world.
