Atrocities Committed By The Imperial Japanese Army
The Japanese did respect the Zone to an extent; no shells entered that part of the city leading up to the Japanese occupation except a few stray shots. During the chaos following the attack of the city, some were killed in the Safety Zone, but the atrocities in the rest of the city were far greater by all accounts.
Japanese soldiers committed atrocities in the Safety Zone that were part of the much larger Nanking Massacre. The International Committee appealed a number of times to the Japanese army, with John Rabe using his credentials as a NSDAP member, but to no avail. From time to time, the Japanese would enter the Safety Zone at will, carry off a few hundred men and women, and either summarily execute them or rape and then kill them. The Japanese army claimed that there were guerrilla soldiers in the Safety Zone and blamed it on John Rabe allowing anyone not wearing uniforms to enter. Citing this reason, Japanese soldiers forcibly entered the Zone.
Read more about this topic: Nanking Safety Zone
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