New Documentary Exposes Japanese War Criminals

Min Lee of the AP reports that alleged travesties from World War II have been proven true some 60-70 years after the fact. Japanese activist Tamaki Matsuoka, after years of research, now has admissions of guilt from Japanese veterans on camera.
The crimes in question included raping Chinese women and mowing down Chinese refugees with machine guns.

Matsuoka's new documentary, Torn Memories of Nanjing, is an attempt to set the record straight after years of Japan's whitewashing of its own history. The on-camera interviews in the film range from an elderly Chinese woman describing in full detail about being sexually assaulted as a girl to a Japanese veteran claiming he enjoyed rape.

Some of the former soldiers even described their raping routine, as Lee writes: "holding victims down as a team, checking their private parts for sexually transmitted diseases and drawing lots to decide who would go first." Remorse was seldom expressed by the perpetrators.

"Chinese and Japanese perceptions of this war are totally different," said Matsuoka through a translator Tuesday. "That's why this documentary is called Torn Memories of Nanjing. My mission is to help more Japanese people learn the facts."

Matsuoka's research journey has not been easy. Ardent deniers of the events she has documented have harassed her fairly regularly, leading to protests at her events and the school she taught at before she retired. The demonstrations have subsided in recent years, but the historian is still cautious, claiming to, according to Lee, "mov[e] to a better-guarded housing complex and storing her interview footage with friends."

"But I've never thought about giving up," Matsuoka said.