International Safety Zone Analysis

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In the midst of the horrors of the Rape of Nanking, there were few individuals who were able to save many innocent lives by keeping them within the International Safety Zone. One of these individuals was the head of the Nazi party in Nanking, named John Rabe. A man who had lived in the city for 30 years, working for the Siemens China Company, and had become deeply fond of the city. During the invasion by the Japanese, Rabe had been titled the head of the Safety Zone. Throughout the time of the Rape, Rabe was met with many challenges in running the Zone. This paper will address these issues and how Rabe dealt with them. The first issue that Rabe encounters in enforcing the Safety Zone is the demilitarization of the actual land. Both Chinese …show more content…
The mayor of Nanking had given thirty-thousand tans of rice and then-thousand bags of flour for these people, but they were left outside the city walls. Most of the trucks that could have been accessible, were taken by the Chinese military in order to move men to the fighting grounds, or had been taken by lone soldiers in order to leave. Rabe and others drove their own vehicles to retrieve the rice and flour and were able to get one third the rice given to them, and only one tenth the flour, into the zone. Although only a small percentage of the rations they were given were able to be brought to the camp, this satiated the hunger of all those in the zone, for the most …show more content…
The Japanese respected Rabe’s Nazi position and typically would listen to him, so even when unarmed Rabe was safe for the most part from Japanese soldiers. He used his swastika armband, a symbol of the Nazi party, to protect himself and others from the brutalities of these soldiers. Rabe would often be able to stop or prevent the rape of women and girls by showing up or occasionally even physically removing the soldier from the act. Iris Chang quotes an exert of his diary from January 1,

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