Saving Haiti's Cultural Heritage

The Fight to Save Haiti’s Archives
Members of the International Council of Archives (ICA) in Haiti have formed a crisis cell entitled ‘Heritage in danger’ on the fringes of the official commission for the evaluation of buildings and reconstruction. They have recently issued a statement listing some of the most urgent requirements in order to save the country’s archives and cultural property. Wilfrid Bertrand is the National Archivist of Haiti and Jérémy Lachal is the Executive Director of Libraries Without Borders, who is currently on mission in Port-au-Prince. Both stressed the pressing need for tarpaulins in order to protect the records that are currently lying on the ground and risk being destroyed during the forthcoming rainy season.
ICA explained that it is urgently trying to get these materials out to Port-au-Prince. It is also working with the Blue Shield Network, the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross, which was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War to protect cultural heritage during armed conflicts. The two organisations are currently trying to collect hard information as the basis for an initial report on damage to cultural property in Haiti. The report is due to provide an indication of the resources that will be needed to safeguard the country’s cultural heritage.
For further information, visit the websites of the ICA (http://www.ica.org/) and Blue Shield (http://www.ancbs.org/).

Bhutan: An Eye to History
More than 80 photographs charting the history of Bhutan were on display until the end of last month at The National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi. The images included photographs of Rinpung monastery in Paro taken in 1864 and of the King and Queen of Bhutan at the Red Fort during their first state visit to India in 1954. There is a slideshow of some of the photographs on the website of the BBC.

Hitler’s secret relationship with Eva Braun
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper concluded that Eva Braun was ‘uninteresting’. However, the first academic biography of Eva Braun: Life With Hitler by the Berlin historian Heike Görtemaker and published at the end of the month by CH Beck refutes traditional views of Braun and Hitler’s relationship.
In Der Spiegel Online Klaus Wiegrefe provides an insight into the realities of the couple’s secret relationship. The article also features a slideshow of images of Eva Braun and Hitler.
Kate Connolly also reports in The Guardian.

Light on Japan’s ‘Unit 731’ experiments
In 1989, a mass grave was discovered during construction work in Tokyo’s district of Shinjuku. The grave contained human remains which are believed to have come from ‘Unit 731’ where the medical research team of the Imperial Japanese Army carried out gruesome human ‘experiments’ on more than 10,000 people per year. Authorities in Tokyo recently announced plans to study the remains in an effort to address this dark, and previously ignored, page of Japanese history.
Julian Ryall reports in The Telegraph.

John Rabe

by Kathryn Hadley

John Rabe, a co-produced German-Chinese film in German and English, about the Nanking Massacre was released in cinemas in Germany yesterday. The film is based on the diary of John Rabe, a German businessman and a member of the Nazi party, who was working for Siemens in China and who saved thousands of Chinese during the massacre.

Rabe had worked in China for 30 years and was about to return to the headquarters of Siemens in Berlin when Japanese troops arrived in Nanjing, the Chinese capital at the time, at the beginning of December 1937. The city’s inhabitants were subject to extreme violence during six weeks and thousands of girls and women were raped in what has become known as the Rape of Nanjing. He remained in China, however, as the head of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and, along with a few other Westerners and using his Nazi party membership, is believed to have prevented the massacre of over 200,000 Chinese. The safety zone was a 7-sq-km zone centred on the American Embassy and educational institutions in Nanjing (primarily the University of Nanking). Food was provided in the zone and 25 civic buildings were used as shelters. Rabe is believed to have sheltered 650 refugees in his own house and garden. He allegedly also wrote a letter to Hitler asking him to intervene! He returned to Berlin in 1938, where he was arrested by the Gestapo for having collaborated with the Chinese. John Rabe died in poverty in Berlin, in 1950, unknown in Germany. His legacy lives on in China, however, where he is remembered as a hero. His diaries only became public in the late 1990s, when they were published in Germany.

Rabe notably visited the mortuary in Nanjing on Christmas Eve in 1937 and later reported in his diary:

‘I wanted to see these atrocities with my own eyes, so that I can speak as an
eyewitness later. A man cannot be silent about this kind of cruelty!’

The film debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival in February and has already won two Bavarian awards. However, it is expected to spark considerable controversy in Japan, where the recognition of Japanese crimes during the Sino-Japanese war remains a heated political issue. Whilst the Chinese claim that 300,000 were massacred, some conservative Japanese politicians and scholars deny that the massacre even took place. At the end of the conflict, an allied tribunal estimated the death toll at 142,000. Controversy was notably still raving last November when Toshio Tamogami, the chief of staff for Japan’s Air Self-Defence Force, was dismissed following his publication of an essay in which he denied Japanese aggression before and during the Second World War.

In an interview for Reuters in February, director Florian Gallenberger explained:

‘We're fully aware the film could be explosive in Japan. It's an extremely
controversial subject in Japan and there are fears there could be severe
repercussions. I hope the film won't be silenced in Japan. I'd very much hope
this film could help get an opening-up of discussion going in Japan.’

Films have been made about Rabe in China before. However, they have never been taken particularly seriously because his story has often been misused for propaganda purposes. Gallenberger believes, however, that his film has achieved neutrality by remaining true to the facts in Rabe’s journal and that the time is now right for such difficult episodes of the two countries’ past to be addressed.

‘It's taken more than 70 years for John Rabe to get the recognition he deserves.
It was our duty to take a neutral view, not a Japanese nor a Chinese viewpoint,
and I believe we've accomplished that.’

The director also believes that Rabe’s attitude was neutral. He had no reason to take sides and acted out of moral reasons, rather than being motivated by a political agenda.

‘At the beginning of the conflict I think [Rabe] has great trust in the Japanese
as German allies to behave in a disciplined and fair way - but when it turns out
otherwise he is shocked. He feels it is his responsibility to act.’

William Kirby, head of the Fairbank Centre for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, confirmed this viewpoint:

‘He saw the Japanese as a normal army and initially resisted the stories of
wrongdoing - he was a neutral outsider.’

The film is due to be premiered in China at the Shanghai Film Festival in June. It remains unclear, however, as to whether or not it will be released in cinemas in Japan. Prince Asaka Yusuhiko, a son-in-law of the Japanese Emperor Meiji and the commander of the Japanese forces in the final assault on Nanjing, is played, however, by the Japanese actor Teruyuki Kagawa. During the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946, Prince Asaka denied any massacre of Chinese; however, the film notably speculates on his involvement in the decision-making process. Kagawa’s participation in the film may raise its profile and popularity in Japan. Kagawa explained, however, that the film would be difficult to watch in Japan.

‘When faced with this film, many people will be shocked [to learn] the Japanese
carried out such cruel acts. I think Japanese people will find the two hours
very hard [to watch].’

The date for the UK release of the film has yet to be decided.

For more information on Nanking, a previous film about the massacre that was released in December 2007, read our article Nanking on Screen
For more information on the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, read our article The Xi'an Incident
For more information on Japanese difficulties in coming to terms with the legacy of the Sino-Japanese War, read our articles Remembering the Forgotten War and Japan's Uncomfortable Past.

The John Rabe Communication Centre also have a useful website with further information about Rabe, his house and the Nanking Massacre Memorial in China in Nanjing, photos of his diaries, a bibliography, as well as extracts from the press about the massacre - http://www.john-rabe.de/.
There is also an interesting article by Professor David Askew entitled ‘New research on the Nanjing Incident’ published on the website of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus - http://www.japanfocus.org/-David-Askew/1729

Kuniyoshi: a window into the Edo period and Japanese art

by Kathryn Hadley

‘Kuniyoshi’ opened at the Royal Academy of Arts on Saturday. The exhibition features over 150 woodblock prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), who was one of the leaders of the school of ‘the floating world’, alongside Hokusai (1760-1849), Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Kunisada (1786-1864). The colour woodblock painting industry flourished in Edo (modern Tokyo) towards the middle of the 19th century, when colour prints were the most significant medium of communication in Japanese popular culture. Kuniyoshi specialised in depicting samurai warriors from the Japanese past, but also portrayed women, landscapes and actors. It is believed that he may have designed as many as 10,000 sheet prints; his most popular sheet print sold up to 8,000 impressions. The exhibition is divided into six sections, highlighting the range of his repertoire and revealing how his subjects changed in accordance with the political climate, censorship regulations and the social and cultural context of the time. The colours, detail and surprisingly modern appearance of his works as well as his depictions of fantastic creatures and of superhuman battles between giant creatures and warriors are beautiful and intriguing; most fascinating, however, is the insight which they provide into 19th-century Japanese history.

The samurai emerged as a ruling class of warriors during the feudal era and until the sixteenth century Japan was largely ruled by various competing factions and clans. During the sixteenth century, however, Jesuit missionaries from Portugal arrived in Japan, initiating trade and cultural exchange between Japan and the West for the first time. Partly as a result of these first contacts with the West, the nation became increasingly unified under Odo Nabunaga, who conquered various territories using European technology and firearms. Nabunaga was, however, assassinated 1582. He was succeeded by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who united the nation in 1590.

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) was regent for Hideyoshi’s son and following Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s death, he used his position to increase his political and military support. Tokugawa Ieyasu was appointed shogun in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo. In 1639, he instituted the sakoku (‘closed country’) policy and such isolationist policies dominated Japan until the end of the 19th century, during what is known as the Edo period. Limited contact with the West persisted, nevertheless, during this period through contacts with the Dutch enclave at Dejima in Nagasaki.

Kuniyoshi’s works reveal both the survival of this Dutch influence, as well as the political restrictions and censorship of the time implemented under the Tokugawa shogunate. The artist’s designs for his landscapes, in particular, with low horizons, ragged clouds, unusual viewpoints and shadows reflect an Europeanised style and it has recently been discovered that one of his scenes, entitled The Night Attack, was based on an illustration by a Dutch artist in an imported book.

Kuniyoshi was, moreover, forced to change the subjects of his prints and to increasingly resort to symbolism in order to counter the censorship of the time. Since the early 17th century, all popular printed works had notably been censored, rendering it on the whole illegal to depict any current event possessing political ramifications or to comment on ruling families and their antecedents. Censorship was tightened, in 1804, to include a ban on the depiction of warriors who lived later than 1573 and, in 1842, prints of courtesans and geisha entertainers were also banned. The Tokugawa family had eliminated many of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s descendants in order to consolidate their own power and was consequently particularly sensitive about any references to Hideyoshi. There remained, however, considerable popular interest in Hideyoshi and Kuniyoshi led the revival of Hideyoshi-related imagery. He was nevertheless careful to change the name of his warrior subjects and to locate them in a more distant past.

‘Kuniyoshi’ is a colourful and lively eye-opener to a form of art and a period of Japanese history which both remain relatively unexplored and unknown in Britain.

For more information on the arrival and reception of European influence in Japan in the 16th century, read our articles The Dutch in Japan and Southern Barbarians and Red-Hairs in Feudal Japan

Pictures: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, The Chinese warrior Zhang Heng, 1847-48;
Fishermen at Teppōzu, early 1830s; Hatsuhana prays under a waterfall, c. 1842 - American Friends of the British Museum (The Arthur R. Miller Collection)

Kuniyoshi
Until June 7th
Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House, Piccadilly
London W1J 0BD
Telephone: 020 7300 8000
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/

Japanese military chief dismissed following denial of Japanese aggression in WW2

The chief of staff for Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force, Toshio Tamogami, has been dismissed following his publication, on October 31st, of an essay in which he denied Japanese aggression before and during the Second World War. The essay won first prize in a competition called “True Perspective of Modern and Contemporary History”.

Tamogami claimed that:

"Even now, there are many people who think that our country's 'aggression' caused unbearable suffering to the countries of Asia during the Greater East Asia War. But we need to realise that many Asian countries take a positive view of the Greater East Asia War. It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation."

His allegations caused controversy both in China and in South Korea.

The generally accepted version of events is that Japan invaded China in 1937, where the military were carried out various acts of aggression and even war crimes. The rape of tens of thousands of women and the killing of several thousand others later became known as the 'Rape of Nanking'. Japanese forces also occupied South Korea from 1910 to 1945. In both countries the Japanese military forced girls and women to serve as sex slaves or, as they were known in Japan, 'comfort women'.

Two former Japanese Prime Ministers have apologised for Japanese aggression before and during WWII. In 1995, on the fiftieth anniversary of the war’s end, Tomiichi Murayama recognised and apologised for the damage and suffering Japan inflicted on its Asian neighbours. Ten years later, on the sixtieth anniversary, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated the official apology and, in 2001, he issued a specific apology for the treatment of Koreans during the Japanese occupation.

Toshio Tamogami’s dismissal was announced by Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada who commented that:

"I think it is improper as the air force chief of staff to publicly state a view clearly different from that of the government's […]. Therefore, it is inappropriate for him to remain in this position and I will swiftly dismiss him."

In the exhibition Disposable People', on display at the Southbank Centre until November 9th, one series of photographs is dedicated to the 'sex slaves' of the Japanese troops in South Korea. Through the testimonies of some of the victims of the Japanese forces, it provides a particularly vivid and moving insight into some of the horrors of the Japanese occupation.

The exhibition will be on tour throughout 2009 at the University of Plymouth, in Newcastle, Nottingham, Carlisle and Aberystwyth.