But now it's over, and it's time to move on. Forgive, but don't forget.
“I recently looked over a book on the Rape of Nanking. I’ve got a pretty
strong stomach, but I could not bring myself to buy the book.”
I did the same a few years back. Just horrific, even in the photos.
But the real impact for me was scanning through the section about the German
diplomat that complained to Berlin that the Japanese troops were just
totally out of control.
In those days, when a German diplomat cried “Foul!”, it really did
mean the perps had totally sailed off any sort of moral map.
“But now it’s over, and it’s time to move on. Forgive, but don’t forget.”
Yep, telling the history is important.
AND writers (and readers) should let it overtake them.
While I take Wikipedia with a large measure of salt...it looks like
depression while researching a book on The Bataan Death March may
have contributed to the suicide of the author of “The Rape of Nanking”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Chang