It is a fact that everyone in the neighborhood has already been killed by the Japanese devils.

It is also estimated that only the safe zone will have refugees.

In every war in history, there have always been people who deserve to be respected, and they are like beacons of light to those who have been persecuted.

In the United States, the Quakers unleashed their efforts and helped them build the 'Underground Railroad'.

In Europe during World War II, the Nazi Schindler spent his fortune rescuing 1,200 Jews from the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenbeiri rescued at least 100,000 Jews by issuing fake passports.

No one will forget the Austrian couple Mius Jeep, who and others hid the little Anne Frank family in the attic of a house in Amsterdam to help them hide from the Germans.

Even if someone dies, it's not a pity.

In the Dark Ages, most people became insensitized and drifted with the flow, but there were always a very few who stepped forward and ignored all warnings to do feats that they would not have been able to imagine in normal times.

During the Jinling Massacre, some Europeans and Americans were willing to risk their lives to resist Japan's aggression against China, establish a safe zone, and save hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees from being killed by Japan.

In November 1937, a few weeks after the fall of Shanghai, French priest Father Rao Jiaju established a neutral zone in Shanghai to protect 450,000 Chinese refugees whose homes had been destroyed and displaced by the Japanese invasion.

Almost at the same time, a group of Europeans and Americans in Jinling decided to establish a security zone in Jinling.

When Presbyterian missionary W. Plummer Mills learned of Rao's feat, he suggested to his friends that a similar safe zone should be established in Jinling as well.

Mills and 20 others, most of them British, but also Germans, Danes, Soviets and Chinese, established a security zone in an area west of downtown Jinling.

Jinling University, Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. Embassy, and many Chinese government institutions are all located here.

At the beginning of their belief in establishing a safe zone, it was only to provide a place of refuge for Chinese civilians trapped in the war between China and Japan.

The plan of these people was to close the safe zone within a few days or weeks after Jinling was safely crossed into the hands of the Japanese.

This idea was not supported at first, and the Japanese categorically rejected the so-called safe zone.

As the Japanese army approached Jinling, not only did relatives and friends try to persuade them, but even many Chinese, Japanese, and Western officials urgently appealed to the members of the International Committee for the Security Zone to abandon the plan and flee for their lives.

In early December, officials at the United States Embassy insisted that the head of the security zone join them aboard the gunboat Panay, which was already crowded with diplomats, journalists, Westerners and refugees as they prepared to flee Jinling up the river.

But the preparers of the zone declined the invitation.

By the 9th, the diplomats had warned them for the last time that the Panay had left Jinling, leaving the foreigners who remained to resign themselves to their fate.

Unexpectedly, on the afternoon of the 12th, without prior warning, Japanese pilots attacked the Panay going up the river, killing two people and injuring many others.

There is still no explanation as to why the Panay was suddenly attacked, but the Japanese argue that the pilots had lost their composure and judgment in the heat of the battle, and that the river was foggy enough for the pilots to see the American flag on the Panay clearly.

But this statement was confirmed to be completely Japanese sophistry.

Because when the Panay was bombed by Japanese planes, not only was the weather sunny, but the Japanese pilots also received a clear order to bomb the Panay, and even this order was strongly protested and argued, so they reluctantly carried out the order.

The reason for this was later deduced to be Japan's internal political struggle, and the Jinling Massacre was also the result of political struggle, as evidenced by the forged secret telegram that exterminated all the prisoners and was subsequently destroyed.

Others said that the move was an attempt to test the reaction of the United States.

In short, Jinling City is much safer than staying on the Panay.

The first batch of refugees to enter the Jinling security zone were those who had lost their homes in the Japanese air raids, or who lived in the suburbs of Jinling City, and whose homes were caught in the flames of war, and who had to abandon their homes and flee in the face of the Japanese army's pressing on.

With the influx of the first refugees, the security zone quickly became overcrowded.

At the beginning of the establishment of the security zone, the person in charge of the security zone estimated that the number of refugees would be about 10,000 people, and the current area was enough to use, but he did not expect that there were too many people pouring into the security zone, and the number was immeasurable.

Many refugees were confined to standing and unable to enter the water for days until new camps opened.

After the fall of Jinling, the number of refugees camped far exceeded the expected thousands, reaching hundreds of thousands.

Over the next six weeks, the International Committee for the Safe Zone had to find ways to provide the refugees with the most basic livelihoods.

Food, shelter and medical care.

The committee also had to protect them from physical harm, which often required their face-to-face intervention to stop the Japanese soldiers from carrying out various threatening activities. In addition, they documented the entire incident, despite no request.

It is almost a miracle that there are only about 20 foreigners, and in the face of the ravages of 50,000 Japanese troops, they are doing their best to protect the more than 100,000 refugees in the security zone.

Before the Japanese occupation of Jinling, these foreigners were missionaries, doctors, professors, and business executives, not battle-hardened officers.

They used to have no worries about food and clothing, lived a peaceful and comfortable life, and were not even rich, but they made great efforts for the Chinese who had nothing to do with them.

Before that, many foreigners were not interested in Chinese soldiers, they thought that the Chinese were taller than the Japanese, and foreigners living in Jinling in 1927 still remember it clearly.

After the National Revolutionary Army invaded Jinling, it went on a killing spree against foreigners and surrounded a group of foreigners in a house near the Mobil company residence and the British consulate, including the American consul and his wife, a woman who recorded that period of terror:

"Will they kill us? Will they abuse us like the Boxers? Could they be more cruel? Will it torment our children right under our noses? I can't imagine what the is going to do to us women? ”

It was not until 1937, after the Japanese army invaded Jinling, that foreigners confessed: "Before the Japanese came in, we were worried about what atrocities the retreating Chinese soldiers would do. But I never dreamed that the Japanese army would be so brutal. On the contrary, we had hoped that with the arrival of the Japanese, peace, tranquility and prosperity would be restored. ”

In fact, the opposite is true.

During the Jinling massacre, the most attractive figure belonged to the German businessman Johann Rabe, a hero to most of the Chinese who remained in Jinling, the Hope of Jinling, the legendary leader of the international security zone who saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees.

For the Japanese, Rabe was unlikely to be the savior of the Jinling people, who was not only a German businessman, a citizen of the Japanese allies, but also the leader of the Nazi Party in Jinling.

It is for this reason that the Japanese did not believe that he would become the savior of the Jinling people, but it was he who saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees.

Johann Rabe was born on November 23, 1882 in Hamburg, Germany, the son of a sea captain, after completing his apprenticeship in Hamburg, he worked in Africa for several years, came to China in 1908, became a clerk in the Jingbei office of Siemens China, and in 1931, he was transferred to the Jinling office of Siemens, where he sold telephones and electrical equipment to the Chinese government.

In his time in Jinling, he quickly became the core figure of the German community in Jinling, managing the primary and secondary school students of the German school he founded.

A few years later, Rabe became a big fan of Na Purism and became the head of Na Cui in this part of Jinling.

After the fall of Jinling, the Japanese soldier Shosaoka, who came to protect Rabe on the orders of his superiors, once asked him: "Why did you stay?" Why are you involved in our military affairs? None of these things have anything to do with you, and you won't have anything to lose when you leave here. ”

Rabe paused for a moment and said to him: "I have lived in China for more than 30 years, my children and grandchildren were born here, and I live happily and have a successful career here. The Chinese treated me well, even during the war. If I had lived in Japan for thirty years, and the Japanese people had treated me well, I assure you that I would not leave the Japanese people in times of crisis, as China is currently facing. ”

The Japanese soldier Saoka was very satisfied with Rabe's answer, and he greatly admired Rabe's loyalty and sincerity.

Rabe had recorded in his diary that Oka took a step back, muttered words like samurai duty, and bowed deeply to me.

Rabe did not leave Jinling for self-preservation, but more for his own reasons, and he felt it was his duty to protect the safety of his employees in China, who were mechanics at Siemens AG and were responsible for maintaining the turbines at Jinling's main power plant, the telephones and clocks of various government departments, the alarms at police stations and banks, and the large X-ray machines at the central hospital.

Rabe had a premonition that if he left Jinling, the employees of his company would die at gunpoint of the Japanese. 、

He chose not to leave.

Before the Jinling massacre, Rabe had experienced numerous air raids in Jinling, each time hiding in a foxhole-like dugout, with several wooden planks covering the entrance of the cave as cover.

Rabe did not have enough clothes to wear, especially in September, when he deposited all his clothes on the steamer Kutvo, which was transporting German citizens out of Jinling, and when he arrived in Hankow, his luggage was lost because it was unclaimed, and as a result, Rabe was left with only two sets of clothes in Jinling, and he gave one of them to a ragged refugee, who he felt needed more than he did.

In the days that followed, Rabe's clothes were not changed, and his primary concern at the moment was not his personal safety, but the establishment of a safe zone.

The members of the International Committee for the Security Zone hoped that there would be no military activity in the entire area, but the Japanese refused to recognize the area as a neutral zone, and the Security Zone Committee also found that the villa of the commander of the Jinling garrison was in the security zone, and that a large number of Chinese troops who had not stolen their cars were in the security zone.

Not only did they refuse to evacuate the security zone, but they also erected turrets over the area.

This made Rabe unbearable, and all military activities were forbidden in the security zone, and the Japanese army itself did not recognize this security zone, and these people also added fuel to the fire and erected turrets in the security zone, which was not to tell the Japanese that this area was not a safe zone.

At this time, a large number of Chinese refugees had already entered the security zone, and once the Japanese troops entered, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Rabe couldn't stand it anymore and went to the head of the remaining troops: "If you don't evacuate the security zone, then I will resign as chairman of the international committee of the security zone and make your batteries in the security zone public!" ”

The original purpose of the establishment of the security zone was to provide security assistance to ordinary people, and in the event of military activity in the security zone, the Japanese army could find an excuse to eliminate the security zone.

Therefore, these people are not allowed to stay in the safe zone.

Rabe is also helpless about this, this kind of thing is more often than not, he is not alone.

There are so many refugees in the safe zone that he needs to think about more people.

In the meantime, another incident happened.

After the establishment of the security zone, Japanese planes continued to bomb Jinling indiscriminately, which caused the security zone to be bombed by Japanese planes at any time.

These letters were all lost in the sea, and no reply was received.

In the next few days, Rabe suddenly discovered that the Japanese army no longer carried out indiscriminate bombing of buildings in Jinling City as before, wantonly bombing indiscriminately, but within a few days, Japanese planes only attacked military targets, such as military schools, airstrips, arsenals, and so on.

But the difficulties will never go away, the scope of the security zone is not extensive, and it can even be described as narrow, as the Japanese army entered Jinling, more and more refugees poured into the security zone.

The security zone is only 2.5 square miles in size, but the number of people needed to secure is 50,000 more than originally estimated in the worst-case scenario.

Not only are all the buildings in the security zone overcrowded, but even the lawns, trenches and bomb shelters are overcrowded.

Families sleeping on the streets are commonplace, with hundreds of shacks of reed mats popping up near the U.S. Embassy.

At this time, the safe zone has accommodated more than 250,000 refugees.

The border of the security zone is marked with a white flag and a red cross surrounded by a red circle, which makes the security zone look like a giant 'human honeycomb'.

(End of chapter)