Date of letter:1992-06-30
Address of author:Qingdao City, Shandong Province
Date of event:1944
Location of event:Ye County, Laizhou City, Shandong Province
Name of author:Chan Yanyi
Name(s) of victim(s):Chan Yanyi’s cousin
Type of atrocity:Rapes (RA)
Other details:In the morning the Japanese soldiers broke the door down and raped Chan Yanyi’s cousin, and then left.
Comrade Tong Zeng:
Qingdao “Newspaper Reference” (November-December, 1992) reprinted the article from the “China Business” about “An Account of Chinese Demand for Damage Compensation from Japan”, after reading it I also developed the same view, in my view the Japanese Invasion Army indeed had owed a blood-stained debt to the Chinese population, since on the Chinese territory they burned, killed, looted, plundered, and raped Chinese women, they committed all sorts of crimes, I bitterly hate the Japanese Invasion Army.
Here I want to feed back a true incident that I have encountered to you:
I’m a native of Dalangya Village, Zhuqiao Town, Ye County, Shandong Province, It was a morning in August of lunar calendar around 1944, a day close to the Mid-autumn Festival, I was sleeping, suddenly my home’s gate was smashed open, which woke me up, at this moment I saw my parents were already dressed and left the kang (heated brick bed), I saw a fully-armed Japanese soldier enter my home, he entered the rooms and searched everywhere. The door of one room was still closed, it was the room where my paternal female cousin and my elder sister slept. This Japanese soldier kicked the door open after several kicks, and raped my paternal female cousin. Whether or not other Japanese soldiers stationed in the village had done the same thing in other residents’ homes, I have no way to know (back then I was only 12, 13), I only knew to hate them. When the day broke, a whistle sounded on the street, it was then that they assembled troops to return to Zhuqiao Outpost (it was rumored there were only a dozen Japanese soldiers). It has been nearly 50 years since this incident occurred, but the shadow lurking in my mind can never be erased, my paternal female cousin now is over 70, and is still living in the countryside, she now has a family of three generations, if she was interviewed now, it is unlikely that she would tell the truth, the reason is the constraint of traditional thinking, plus she now has grandchildren, it would be too embarrassing to tell the truth, though it’s also the fact, I can only complain, and inform you of such an incident, hope you will forgive my presumptuousness.
Regards
Yours faithfully
Retired cadre Tan Yanyi
Qingdao Infectious Disease Hospital
1992.6.30
