The woman who could not forget by Richard Rhodes

Author:Richard Rhodes [Rhodes, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Version originale, Littérature Américaine, Biographie
ISBN: 9781453217641
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2011-01-14T23:00:00+00:00

Iris told us later that Asahi Shimbun held on to the news for a long time, two months, as it hesitated over whether it should be published or not. Finally, it was published on December 8, a few days before the New York Times article. The Asahi’s German translator, Jeff Heynen, translated the German report into English and gave Iris a copy, which was later used by the New York Times in their article on December 12.

On October 15, Iris was interviewed by a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News, the biggest English newspaper in the South Bay area. On November 3, a big article on Iris and her discovery of Rabe’s diary was featured in the Mercury News. Iris mailed us a copy of the article, which was accompanied by three photos: one was a side view of Iris standing and looking at the photos hanging on the wall of the photo exhibition, one was a photo of John Rabe, and lastly there was a photo of Iris next to a photo of a woman with an expression of unspeakable agony. With the publication of this article, Iris was instantly known in the Bay area and became famous in the Chinese-American community.

On November 10, 1996, Iris wrote to me:

Dear Mom,

Here is the latest exciting news. . . .

I shall be the master of ceremonies for what I believe will be the biggest Rape of Nanking conference ever. The event will take place at Stanford University during the first weekend of December. Hundreds of people from more than 50 activist organizations all over the globe will be there—as well as representatives from all the major news organizations of California, China and Japan. The goal of the three-day affair is to discuss legal strategy. How can we seek reparations for victims through international law and UN resolutions? How can we gather evidence of atrocities for lawsuits? What methods should we use to force the Japanese to accept responsibility for its [sic] past misdeeds?

The turnout for this conference will be twice as large as the one I attended in December 1994. So many scholars and international lawyers and survivors plan to attend that Ignatius Ding had to turn down requests from prominent academics to present papers on subjects unrelated to the main theme of the event.

Therefore, I was truly surprised, but honored, when Ignatius called me last week and asked me to kick off the opening ceremony as the keynote speaker and MC.

This evening I talked about my book and John Rabe before a packed audience in the Mountain View City Council Chambers (Ignatius Ding had invited me and another person to speak on the subject). Virtually every seat was taken, and some people stood near the door or against the wall. Afterwards, I was literally BESIEGED. A crowd of reporters, activists, World War II veteran types, and interested readers, both Asian and Caucasian, swarmed about me, offering congratulations and asking a million questions (while rifling through my lecture notes). I

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