On November 22,1937 the Chinese trusted some foreigners that volunteered to make a safety zone for Nanjing. This safety zone was made to protect Nanjing civilians from Japanese soldiers. Chinese authorities agreed to this idea because the safety zone would not allow the Japanese authorities inside. As the Japanese brought more terror, more civilians rushed over to the safety zone. Over 200,000 -250,000 people came. This overwhelmed the Nazis because they were already low on food and water because the Japanese blocked off the area to where they got their supplies from. During this time there were many people that were injured and needed medical help but these safety zones sometimes went weeks without any running water, and electricity which is bad because some of the people in these safety zones needed to have surgery due to the rape and torture caused by the Japanese. Some people tried to get help by actively writing letter about the chaos and the terrible conditions in the safety zone. Some of these letters were written by a man named Fitch, the head of the YMCA in Nanjing, he sent these letters to the US hoping to get there attention and help. On January 1938 Fitch went to the US teaching people of the atrocities that the Japanese where doing and in addition brought films as evidence. However, it is not sure if the US helped the Chinese. (Chang chpt 5)
|