Families of the victims of the Nanking Massacre keep the memory of the atrocities of the Sino-Japanese war. (Photo : Getty Images)
A copyright signing was held in Beijing last Friday. The book's Chinese translation is going to be released.
At 63, she finished research on the Nanking Massacre because she was motivated to know many unexplained facts about the Sino-Japanese war. Matsuoka is a history major at Kansai University.
The author said, "I wasn't able to teach my students this way, especially when they asked me what I knew about the war. So I made up my mind to collect more historical information."
She started to go to Nanking since 1988. After 90 visits of looking for victims' families, doing interviews and conducting more research, she finally achieved her goal.
The book is a historical account and interview transcripts of 300 victims and 250 soldiers.
"The more you know, the more you question, and the more you want to know," Matsuoka said.
When she conducted the interview, people were usually uneasy, especially that they know that Matsuoka is Japanese. Later on, the interviewees would start and talk incessantly.
She said, "Some of them were uncomfortable when they saw I was Japanese and refused to talk at first, but I managed to persuade them to say a bit. My interpreter also helped explain how I want to tell Japanese the real history of the war. Once they started to talk, they usually couldn't stop."
Upon interviewing Japanese soldiers, many of them were unaware of the atrocities that the Japanese army incurred in China. Many of them were surprised when Matsuoka told them of the impact of the war.
She revealed, "Many veterans took back things they stole in China back home, but told their family members they treated the Chinese well and that the Chinese people were also friendly to them."
"During interviews, I described scenes of shootings and how Chinese civilians fell down to the ground and some of them gradually remembered and realized what they did was bad," the author said.
