Chapter 2 Preface

This is a special diary that has attracted the attention of the world. The author of this diary, Dong Shiro, was born on April 27, 1912 in Tango Ding, Takeno County, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan.In August 1937, the 25-year-old Toshiro was called into the army. He was a senior soldier of the 20th Infantry Regiment of the 16th Division of the Japanese Army. He participated in the capture of Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Xuzhou, Wuhan, Xiangdong, etc. During the war, he returned to China due to illness in September 1939.In March 1944, he was again called to participate in the war of aggression against China.In August 1945, he surrendered to Chinese troops in Shanghai.Returned to Japan in January 1946.Dong Shiro has the habit of keeping a diary. He recorded in detail what he saw and heard during the war of aggression against China, with a total of 370,000 words in five volumes.

In his diary on December 21, 1937, he recorded that Nishimoto (Mitsuji Hashimoto) put a Chinese into a mail bag in front of the Nanjing Supreme Court, poured gasoline on it, set it on fire, and finally tied the The atrocity of throwing a grenade into a pond and blowing it up: On the 21st, we were ordered to guard the city, and we left Maqun Town again. The Supreme Court on Zhongshan Road, which is equivalent to Japan's Ministry of Justice, is a large gray building, and a dilapidated private car was overturned in front of the court.There is a pond across the road.A Chinese man was brought in from nowhere, and his comrades teased him like a child playing with a captured puppy.At this time, Nishimoto made a cruel proposal, which was to put the Chinese man in a bag, pour the gasoline in the car, and then set it on fire.Then, the crying Chinese man was put into the mail bag, the mouth of the bag was tied tightly, and the Chinese man was struggling and crying desperately in the bag.Nishimoto kicked the bag around like he was playing football and pissed into the bag like he was fertilizing vegetables.Nishimoto took out gasoline from the broken car, poured it on the bag, tied a long rope to the bag, and dragged it back and forth on the ground.

People with a little bit of conscience stared at this cruel game frowning, while those without any conscience encouraged it loudly and found it very interesting. Nishimoto lit the fire.As soon as the gasoline was ignited, there was a creepy scream from the bag.The bag jumped and rolled with all its strength. Some comrades-in-arms still find it very funny to face such a cruel gameplay, the bag rolled all over the ground like a fireball, and screamed in hell.Xiben pulled the rope on his pocket and said, "Hey, if it's too hot, I'll cool you down!" As he said, he tied two grenades to the bag, and then threw the bag into the pond.Gradually the fire died out, the bag sank downward, and the ripples of the water slowly calmed down.Suddenly, "Peng!" The grenade exploded, setting off a splash.

After a while, the water calms down and the game is over. Things like this are not a crime on the battlefield, it's just that the cruelty of the Japanese surprised us. After a while, the group of people forgot all the tragedy above, humming a little song and walking again as if nothing happened. After the war, Toshiro returned to Japan and successively managed movie theaters, machine tool manufacturing, etc., and lived a prosperous life.In 1987, out of reflection on his participation in the war of aggression and the desire to apologize to the Chinese people, Toshiro published his wartime diary at the Peace Exhibition in Kyoto, Japan, which included records of the Nanjing Massacre. Material.He said: "For a veteran, the events on the battlefield are indelible, because I often see that diary, and the situation at that time often appears in my mind. Everyone forgets what happened half a century ago. But I can remember these things because I have these diaries." In December of the same year, Toshiro published an excerpt of the diary under the title "My Nanjing Infantry" and published it in Aoki Shoten. At the same time, it was resented by the Japanese right-wing forces.From December 1987 to March 1998, Dong Shiro came to Nanjing four times to sincerely "apologize to the people of Nanjing".As a result, his family received many threatening phone calls from Japanese right-wingers, calling him a "traitor", a "traitor", "a disgrace to the old soldier", "defiled the heroic spirit", "deserving death" and so on. Shiro and his family are not afraid of threats.Toshiro said: "We Japanese cry out loudly about the harm suffered by the atomic bomb, but we are silent about the pain inflicted on the Chinese people.... As a person who has experienced the war, tell the truth about the harm and use it as a basis for introspection, This is the duty of the fighters."

During the war of aggression against China, poisoned by militaristic ideology, Dong Shiro was undoubtedly the perpetrator of the Chinese people, and his hands were once stained with the blood of my compatriots.But there is an old saying in China: "He who knows shame is almost brave." After half a century, Dong Shiro was not afraid of siege, abuse and threats, and bravely stood up to reflect on the war of aggression, apologized to the Chinese people, and ruthlessly exposed the Japanese army's past. This brutal act requires considerable awareness and courage, and is a commendable act of justice.

In his diary, Toshiro mentioned the atrocities of his former squad leader Hashimoto Koji during the Nanking Massacre.For up to six years after the diary was published, Hashimoto raised no objections.In April 1993, under the careful planning of some former Japanese generals, Hashimoto sued Toshiro, Aoki Shoten, and Masaki Shimosato, the editor of the book, on the grounds that the diary entries were "untrue" and "defamation". , The lawsuit went to the Tokyo District Court, demanding a public apology in the newspaper and payment of two million yen in damages.Japanese right-wing forces attempted to use Hashimoto's restoration of reputation as a breakthrough, and completely denied the historical facts of the Nanjing Massacre.After three years of trials, the Tokyo District Court catered to the intentions of right-wing forces and advocated the theory that the Nanjing Massacre was "undecided". The "mail bag", "grenade" and other descriptions were "fictional", and the "defendants" including Toshiro who exposed the atrocities of the Nanjing Massacre were sentenced to lose the lawsuit, and Hashimoto was each compensated 500,000 yen.

On April 26, 1996, after the case was lost in the Tokyo District Court in the first instance, a Japanese friend made a special trip to Nanjing to discuss the issues involved in the first instance: "Whether there was a pond on the opposite side of the road in front of the Supreme Court" and "Whether the grenade was tied to a mailbag containing Chinese people and thrown into the pond, and whether it would cause harm to the perpetrators on the shore after the explosion" investigated and collected evidence, and received a lot of attention from all walks of life. The great support of the people, people have provided evidence for the above three issues to provide strong evidence.The Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invaders handed over these testimonies and evidence to the lawyers of the Dong Shiro case one by one, which became the supporting evidence of the case.The site of the former Supreme Court (now the Commercial Department of Jiangsu Province), located at No. 101, Zhongshan North Road, Nanjing, is the place where the tragedy happened that year.From August 1996 to the present, Nanjing citizens have provided thirty-three, forty-two maps of the year and two historical aerial photos, all of which prove that there is indeed a pond across the road in front of the former Supreme Court.

On August 15, 1996, the Jiangsu Provincial and Nanjing Postal Bag Allocation Bureau issued a certificate on the size, texture and typeface of the postal bag, proving that the postal bag at that time could indeed hold a person. Professor Xu Yungeng from Nanjing University of Science and Technology is an expert in the development of hand grenades in my country.In 1939, he remade a small grenade with a wooden handle for both offensive and defensive purposes in the Hankou Arsenal.He proved that before this, the grenades used by the Chinese army were all old-fashioned wooden handle grenades.Its detonation time is five to seven seconds, and the killing radius is five to seven meters. It also provides the structural diagram and technical information of the grenade back then.On March 6, 1998, the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invaders entrusted the Nanjing Engineering Blasting Design Institute to conduct a grenade explosion test in Shangfeng, Jiangning County.

Professor Wu Tengfang, a blasting expert who presided over the grenade test, said: "The results of the test are completely consistent with the relevant descriptions in the book, and they will not pose a threat to the perpetrators." On July 20, 1998, Nanjing Engineering Blasting Design The Institute once again carried out the underwater fixed-point explosion test of the grenade for the case, and the test results verified the authenticity of the records.Notaries Liu Qingning and Li Qiaobao of the Nanjing Notary Office notarized the grenade explosion test on site and issued a "notarial certificate".

On the afternoon of December 22, 1998, the Tokyo High Court ruled that Toshiro lost the case again.Hashimoto's lawyer, Katsuhiko Takachi, and his supporters held a press conference immediately, and put up a big slogan "Nanjing tortured and murdered fabricated referee wins the lawsuit" at the venue. The reactionary arrogance was very arrogant. When the news came out, righteous people all over the world were deeply shocked.People expressed surprise, regret and strong indignation at the inappropriate judgment of the Tokyo High Court, which disregarded historical facts and turned black and white.Domestic and foreign news media and peaceful and friendly people expressed solidarity with Shiro Toshiro's just actions in various ways, and condemned the shameless act of the Tokyo High Court.Zhu Bangzao, spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was interviewed by CCTV reporters on December 23, 1998, and commented on the loss of the case at the press conference the next day: China has noticed the Japanese court's decision on the case Surprised and regretted by the verdict that disregarded the historical facts!

The war of aggression against China launched by Japanese militarism in the past brought serious disasters to the Chinese people. The tragic "Nanjing Massacre" was one of the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese army during the war of aggression against China.This historical fact is solidly proved. Any attempt to deny this historical fact is futile and will be strongly condemned by all justice-holders, including the Japanese people.We ask the Japanese side to take concrete actions to face up to history, respect historical facts, and use history as a mirror to prevent the recurrence of historical tragedies. On December 28, 1998, Zhu Bangzao said in an interview with reporters again: We have noticed the statement made by the spokesperson of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders in Nanjing are undeniable facts.However, it must be pointed out that the Toshiro lawsuit is not an ordinary civil lawsuit. Its essence is an attempt by a very small number of Japanese right-wing forces to deny the Nanjing Massacre through judicial procedures.Japan's Tokyo High Court made a wrong judgment in disregard of historical facts, which seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. China once again expresses its regret and indignation. Historical facts cannot be erased, and the crimes committed by Japanese militarism in aggression against China cannot be erased. .We ask the Japanese side to face up to and reflect on history with practical actions, take history as a mirror, and stick to the path of peaceful development.In order to tell the truth of history to the world, when Dong Shiro came to Nanjing for the fourth time in March 1998, he donated his wartime diary, medals and military flags to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, and authorized the Memorial Hall to contact Publish the Chinese version.The memorial hall then authorized Jiangsu Education Press to publish the Chinese version. Jiangsu Education Publishing House and the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders decided to publish the Chinese version mainly due to the following considerations. One is the need to comprehensively and systematically display the historical materials of the Nanjing Massacre to the world. In recent years, although a number of historical materials about the Nanjing Massacre have been publicly published in China, for example, "Nanjing Massacre Survivor Testimony Collection", "Nanjing Massacre Photo Collection", "Nanjing Massacre Archives Collection" published from the perspective of victim witnesses ", etc.; "Japanese Army Atrocities Witnessed by Outsiders", "Foreigners' Testimony Collection" and so on published from the perspective of witnesses in third countries, but the historical materials books published from the perspective of perpetrators, except for the accounts of former Japanese officers and soldiers scattered in some books Apart from the diaries in the formation, there is currently no relatively complete Chinese version of historical materials, which just makes up for this shortcoming. Second, it is the need to dedicate a complete book to the readers.In view of the fact that the Japanese version is an excerpt with a word count of about 200,000 words, the Chinese version adopts the method of literal translation of the full text, trying to provide readers with the most complete book, so that people can not only understand the truth about the Nanjing Massacre, but also The aggression and massacres committed by the Japanese invaders in North China, East China and the Central Plains. Third, it is to further expose the atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders and respond to the needs of the right-wing forces in Japan to deny the historical facts of the war of aggression.For decades after the war, some people in Japan have always taken a secretive and irresponsible attitude towards the historical facts of the war of aggression against China that took place half a century ago. Especially since the 1980s, it has further developed to Attempts to deny and obliterate history.As Shiro Toshi, who personally experienced the war, the publication of the diary written from the psychology and perspective of the perpetrators not only helps people understand the truth of history, but also is a powerful refutation of the Japanese right-wing forces. Four.It is a strong solidarity with Mr. Toshiro's just actions.On December 25, 1998, the 86-year-old Toshiro resolutely appealed to the Tokyo Supreme Court for the sake of justice and historical facts.The case is a lawsuit that has lasted for six years and is still unfinished; it is an extraordinary civil lawsuit that involves history more than 60 years ago but has not been tried according to the historical truth; A constant contest between evil forces.The publication and distribution of this book is not only to provide a precious historical material for readers who follow and support Dong Shiro, but also to affirm and support Mr. Dong Shiro's just actions. Of course, because Toshiro was poisoned by Japanese militaristic ideology back then, the positions and views reflected in his diary were tinged with militaristic ideology, which requires us to examine and read this book from a historical perspective. During the translation and publication process of this diary, we received strong support and assistance from the Propaganda Department of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, the Press and Publication Bureau of Jiangsu Province, and the Propaganda Department of the Nanjing Municipal Party Committee. In line with the principle of respecting the author and being faithful to the original, we require the translator to perform a literal translation of the full text of the handwritten diary manuscript provided by the author without making any changes.Just considering that most of the people involved in the diary are still alive, we have done some technical processing on the names of the people in it.The original names in the manuscript are preserved in the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.The illustrations in the text of this book are all hand-painted by Dong Shiro.The photos in the book are all provided by the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. Most of the translators of this book are teachers majoring in Japanese at Nanjing University, and their specific division of labor is: Zhang Guoren, preface, volume two; Wang Ping, volume one; Wang Liying, Chen Juan, volume three; Wang Yihong, Shen Lin, volume four Volume; Fan Yurong, volume five.Zhang Guoren did the organizational work.In addition, Cao Li and Wei Xiaoyang also translated part of the content.