2. A True Warrior

I never dreamed of persons with humanfaces but  beast hearts existing in the world, and we had to deal with it.

——Ernest H. Forster

When war begins then hell opens.

In August, 1938, Refugees in the University of Nanking.

Mr. Forster joins us a visit to his mission’s Anglican church on Taiping Road. Two grenades exploded in one of the houses beside the church. The houses themselves have been broken into and looted. Forster surprises some Japanese soldiers who are about to steal his bicycle but vamoose when they spot us. We stop a Japanese patrol, and point out to them that this is American property and ask them to order the looters to leave. They simply smile and leave us standing there.

We run across a group of 200 Chinese workers whom Japanese soldiers have picked up off the streets of the Safety Zone, and after having been tied up, are now being driven out of the city. All protests are in vain.

Of the perhaps one thousand disarmed soldiers that we had quartered at the Ministry of Justice, between 400 and 500 were driven from it with their hands tied. We assume they were shot since we later heard several salvos of machine-gun fire. These events have left us frozen with horror.

-- Form <The Diaries of JOHN RABE>, 14 December

It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of the destruction. We come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. These people had presumably been fleeing and were shot from behind.

-- Form <The Diaries of JOHN RABE>, 14 December

Fear of death is instinct,

and the brutal atrocities of the Japanese Army plungedthe people into infinite fear.

Foster is just an ordinary priest

He overcame the struggle and hesitation in life and death

Ignored the fear

He chose to stay and fight the evil forces in the end