What role did foreigners play in Nanking during Japanese control of the city?
What role did foreigners play in Nanking during Japanese control of the city?
The use of the term “genocide” is usually credited to a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) when he used the term in his book, Axis Rule in Europe (1944). Thus, from the start, “genocide” was most closely applied in reference to the Jewish Holocaust carried out by the Nazis. In 1948 the United Nations adopted a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which entered into effect in 1951, with a specific definition of genocide. Despite that convention, and the agreement of the signers to abolish genocide, it has continued to take place over the last fifty years in a variety of locales across the world.
Here are some of the questions that you should consider as part of your assignment, but it is not required that you specifically answer these; it is most important that you really focus on the above assignment question. Here are other points that you might consider touching on in your group work:
What role did foreigners play in Nanking during Japanese control of the city?
Were the Japanese ever held accountable for their actions in Nanking?
