"PILES of corpses of Chinese civilians killed can be seen everywhere in the city, especially in the streets and lakes near the outskirts of the city."
This is what a German Nazi wrote in his diary about the holocaust he witnessed on December 15, 1937, in Nanjing, the then Nationalist Chinese capital, which fell into the hands of Japanese aggressors in December 13, 1937.
The discovery of the diary confirms the Japanese savagery in China during World War II.
Last week, the rare wartime diary by John H. Rabe was made public in New York by his granddaughter Ursula Reindardt, who was also an eyewitness to the slaughter.
The diary carries a detailed personal account of the massacre, providing new evidence of the atrocities committed by Japanese troops in World War II.
Rabe, who was chief representative of the Siemens Company, chairman of the International Committee of the Nanjing Safety Zone and group leader of the local Nazi branch, wrote in his diary about how he hid thousands of Chinese people to prevent their slaughter by the Japanese soldiers. Rabe also provided local people with food and helped improve hygiene in Nanjing.
The revelation of the diary again refutes the denials by a handful of Japanese, including government officials, of the atrocities committed by Japanese troops in Nanjing and other cities in China during World War II.
In eight volumes, the 2,117-page diary gives a detailed record of how the Japanese invaders overran the Nationalist Chinese capital. The six-week rampage of looting, rape and killing by the Japanese soldiers left more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers dead.
Scholars believe the diary is authentic because it has similar descriptions of events to those provided by missionaries who knew Rabe and his deeds.
In recent years, the tendency for some politicians in Japan to eulogize the country's war crimes and shamelessly defend militarism has become increasingly acute.
Some politicians in Japan have never given up their aim to reverse the verdicts and distort history.
The Nanjing Massacre is one of the events such Japanese people have denied fervently. They claim the "so-called" Nanjing Massacre was fabricated by the Chinese to vilify the Japanese Imperial Army. The city only had a population of about 100,000 then, and the killing of 300,000 civilians and soldiers was impossible, they say.
Such fantasy is hardly worth refuting.
Chinese people who survived the atrocities of unparalleled savagery, foreign envoys who saw the slaughterhouses, and repentant Japanese soldiers have all provided irrefutable evidence.
And Rabe's verdicts are certainly convincing.
While recording the facts, I assume that Rabe tried to be objective. As a national from a country friendly to Japan, he would no doubt show due respect to the feelings of the Japanese.
Even so, the facts disclosed in his diary must make anyone with the slightest humanity boil with anger.
An entry from December 14, 1937 reads:
"Only on driving through the city do we really begin to get to know the extent of the destruction. Every 100 or 200 metres we would bump into bodies. The bodies of the civilians, which I investigate, show shots in the back. The people are therefore probably shot dead while running away."
The women raped by the invaders were aged from 7 to 70, he wrote.
It seems to me that this time those ill-intentioned people in Japan who falsify history should finally shut up.
If they dare to deny or whitewash Japan's history of aggression again, they will incur the contempt and disgust of the Chinese people.
If the rekindling of the dying embers of Japanese militarism cannot be checked, it can only lead the country to isolation and self-destruction.
This is the last thing that Japan and the rest of the world wants to see.
The long-standing issue which allows the Japanese militarists to continue is that Japan has so far failed to adopt a repentant attitude towards its history of aggression.
That is why the world has been exposed again and again to the farces staged before the Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese politicians, the attempts to revise textbooks, and the denial of war crimes including the Nanjing Massacre and the taking of "comfort women."
People may wonder whether any sense of right or wrong has survived in Japan.
A Chinese proverb says lessons learned from the past can guide the future.
In the present social and political situation, what have the younger generation in Japan learned from their textbooks about the history of their own country?
In the textbooks sanctioned by the education ministry, the Nanjing Massacre is referred to obliquely as an unspecified "incident" involving Japanese troops in Nanjing.
And Japanese youngsters have been told by influential politicians that the war launched by their parents, which brought terror to tens of millions of people in Asia, was to "liberate Asia."
How can Japan assure the world that its youth of today will not follow their ancestors' old militarist road to ruin in the future?
Reassurance hinges on whether or not Japan can correct its view of history.
As we stand on the threshold of a new century, peace, development and progress have become irresistible global trends.
As an economic giant in Asia, it is only natural for Japan to crave a bigger role in the international arena.
But if Japan continues to clingto its reactionary view of history, how can China and other Asian countries feel comfortable in developing comprehensive relations with Japan?
A correct attitude towards its history of aggression and repentance of its war crimes are not only the demands of peace-loving people throughout the world but are also in the interests of Japan itself.