The Nanjing Atrocities: The Range of Responses

About this Lesson

In this lesson, students will be introduced to a framework for understanding human behavior during the Nanjing atrocities and consider the range of choices available to individuals, communities, and nations in the midst of war. Students will read firsthand accounts in which perpetrators, bystanders, upstanders, resisters, and rescuers describe their choices during this period and reflect on both the reasons behind their actions and the consequences. Students will grapple with questions of moral responsibility, and they will reflect on why some people decided to rescue and resist—by establishing the Nanjing Safety Zone—while others stood by or even condoned the atrocities that occurred.

Essential Questions

How do nations create their identities by separating “us” from “them”? How might a sense of nationalism built around such ideas contribute to the outbreak of war, the dehumanization of enemies, and the perpetration of atrocities? 

Guiding Questions

• What choices did individuals, groups, and nations make in response to the events of the Nanjing atrocities?
• What factors influenced their choices to act as perpetrators, bystanders, upstanders, or rescuers?

Learning Objectives

Students will analyze, discuss, and explain the range of choices available to individuals, groups, and nations during the Nanjing atrocities and explore the possible motivations and reasons for decision-making in this time of crisis.

Lesson Plan

Day 1

Activity 1: Reflect on the Decision to Rescue

• Set the tone for today’s class by having students respond to the following question in their journals:

What does it take to intervene to try to save someone from violence and injustice? When do you think it is necessary to do so? What do you think might be some risks in trying to intervene? Explain your thinking.
 

• Students can respond in an activity based on the Think, Pair, Share strategy, or you can facilitate a whole-group discussion.

Activity 2: Introduce Human Behavior Vocabulary

• Tell students that in this lesson they will be building on their study of the Nanjing atrocities by examining the responses from individuals and nations. Before they do, students will need to understand some terms that describe a range of human behavior in response to unjust and troubling actions.
• Pass out the handout Human Behavior Vocabulary Terms and instruct students to use the context clues in the sentences of the first column to predict the definitions of the underlined words.
• After asking a few students to share their predicted meaning of each word and how they came to that conclusion, you can share the dictionary definition and have them record the information in the third column of the chart.
  • Perpetrator: A person carrying out a harmful, illegal, or immoral act. Victim: A person being targeted by the harmful, illegal, or immoral acts of a perpetrator.
  • Resister: Someone who refuses to comply with something, through either action or argument.
  • Bystander: A person who is present but not actively taking part in a situation or event.
  • Upstander: A person speaking or acting in support of an individual or cause, particularly someone who intervenes on behalf of a person being attacked or bullied.
  • Rescuer: A subcategory of the term upstander: one who takes action directly to save people from harm, including hiding them, taking their children into their homes, helping them get visas to flee to safe countries, or helping in other critical ways.
• Invite students to critique the dictionary definitions. Do students have any questions about these definitions? How are they similar to or different from the students’ own definitions? Are the dictionary definitions adequate, or do they need to be further revised?
• You might point out to students that these dictionary definitions are written in the present tense (“carrying out” and “being targeted”) and ask them to consider the fact that a person may act as a perpetrator or bystander at one moment in time and be targeted as a victim at another moment in time. Therefore, these are roles that people play rather than permanent identities.

Activity 3: Analyze Specific Choices People Made

• Divide the class into five groups, and assign each group one of the following readings:
   
  1. All-China Resistance Association of Writers and Artists
  2. The Nanjing Safety Zone
  3. Western Diplomats
  4. Japanese Diplomats 
  5. The Japanese Press
      
• Explain to the class that today they will be collaborating with their group members to read stories of perpetrators, bystanders, upstanders, and rescuers during the Nanjing atrocities and then answering questions. Each group will make a presentation about its reading in the next class period.
• Distribute one of the readings to each group, along with the handout The Nanjing Atrocities: The Range of Human Behavior for each student. Read the instructions on the handout aloud so the groups are clear about the steps for reading, annotating, and discussing the questions together. Tell students that they will have time to prepare their presentation at the start of the next lesson. If any groups did not finish responding to their reading’s questions, they should do so outside of class for homework.

Day 2

Activity 1: Prepare Poster Presentations

• Tell students that they will be presenting their readings to the class, focusing on the choices, motivations, and consequences of the decisions that were made. So that they can be mindful of time, let students know at the outset of the activity the time at which they will begin their presentations.
• Each group should prepare a poster that draws from the information they collected yesterday on the handout The Nanjing Atrocities: The Range of Human Behavior and includes the following information:
  • The individuals, groups, or nations described in the reading
  • One significant choice that individuals, groups, or nations made in the reading
  • A motivation, reason, or explanation for this choice
  • The possible or actual consequences of this choice
  • A sentence describing how the individuals, groups, or nations in the reading characterize those to whom they are responsible and for whom they are accountable
  • A sentence describing where in the range of human behavior (perpetrator, bystander, upstander, rescuer) the reading’s individual, group, or nation falls, and why (could be more than one category)
  • A significant quotation from the reading
• After the groups have finished preparing their posters, ask them to select two students to provide a brief summary of their responses and present the information to the class. Alternatively, you might ask each group to present, with each student sharing one or more aspects of the poster.

Activity 2: Present Posters to the Class

• Pass out the handout Choices and Consequences for students to record notes on during the group presentations, and have one pair from each group present their information to the class.
• Students in the class should record notes on the handout as they listen to their peers. There is space at the bottom of the handout for students to add their own questions.

Activity 3: Discuss Decision-Making in a Time of Crisis

• To help students synthesize the material presented in this lesson, lead a class discussion about decision-making in times of crisis using the following question:
  • When looking at these readings as a whole, what similarities and differences do you notice as you consider the circumstances under which people chose to perpetuate violence, stand by, or take action?