30th January 1938.

Nan King fell to the Japanese 6 weeks

ago. Since then, the Japanese have

unleashed one of the worst atrocities in

human history upon the city's civilians.

Looting, rape, and slaughter have

consumed the city. In a small house on

Hanko Road, another woman is about to

suffer the same fate. Her husband's body

is in a coffin in one room while a

Japanese soldier throws her to the floor

in the other. But suddenly, a man

arrives. He bursts through the door,

shouting in his foreign tongue and grabs

the rapist. He drags the soldier out of

the room and throws him out of the

house. The soldiers disappear into the

streets while the woman tearfully thanks

the man who saved her. She has never met

him before, but everyone left in Nank

King knows who he is. His name is John

Raba, and he is totally unarmed. His

only protection from the monstrous

violence of the Japanese is his red

armband emlazed with a swastika of his

beloved Nazi party. Today on a day in

history, we're revealing the story of

how the Nazi John Raba became a hero for

the people of Nan King during one of the

darkest moments in human history.

On the surface, there was nothing that

remarkable about John Barber. The

55-year-old German worked for the

appliance company Seaman's AG, where he

ran the company's Nank King office,

selling telephones and other appliances

to the Chinese government. A father and

grandfather, he was reasonably wealthy

and quite social, which made him a

well-known face among Nanking's small

German community. Like many Germans, he

embraced the rise of the Nazis and

became an outspoken supporter of Hitler,

eventually becoming the leader of the

city's Nazi party. chapter. Nazi Germany

and Imperial Japan were allies. So when

fighting intensified between Japan and

China in late 1937, Raba didn't have to

worry. He was wealthy and connected

enough to easily find a way out of

Nanking before Japanese troops arrived.

And the Japanese would not attack a

member of Hitler's party anyway. As most

of Nanking's residents fled the city,

Raba remained.

Reports of atrocities flowed in as the

Japanese advanced through China and Raba

feared that his Chinese employees might

be mistreated if he wasn't there to

protect them. Seaman's AG had many

Chinese employees and many of their

products like alarm systems were used by

Chinese authorities. The Japanese would

consider all of his workers as part of

China's war machine and would surely

kill them. He refused to abandon them to

that fate. Besides, the city had been

his home for years. He would not abandon

it lightly. By November 10th, the first

Japanese air raids reached Nank King.

Bombers began pelting the city

indiscriminately,

softening it up for the ground troops

who were drawing closer by the day. Life

in the city became chaotic. Most of the

population had already fled. Banks and

shops closed, newspaper presses stopped

operating, and the rivers and roads were

clogged with refugees, desperately

trying to escape the city's inevitable

fate. Seeing all the suffering around,

Kaba decided to do something about it.

Shanghai had fallen to the Japanese

earlier in autumn 1937.

There, a French priest named Jacino de

Bas established a neutral area to

shelter tens of thousands of Chinese

refugees from enemy soldiers. What if

the same thing could be done in Nank

King? On November 19th, Kaba and several

dozen other members of Nanking's

international community, including

Americans, Brits, Danes, and Russians,

held a meeting where they decided to set

up their own safety zone. The Japanese

would simply slaughter a Chinese-run

zone. But an international effort which

included Japan's own allies and powerful

potential enemies might be enough to

deter Japanese aggression. An area

encompassing Nanking University, Gining

Women's College, the American Embassy,

and several residences and government

buildings would become the sanctuary for

anyone fleeing Japanese terror. On

November 22nd, they sent a message out

to various governments advising them

that this demilitarized safe zone was

being set up in the city under the care

of a committee made up of members of

several nations in Nank King. The

international committee earnestly hopes

that the Japanese authorities may find

it possible for humanitarian reasons to

respect the civilian character of this

safety zone. Their declaration read.

Raba was elected to lead the safety

zone. Aside from being a respected

member of the community, the safety zone

committee thought that Raba's position

in the Nazi party would make things

easier when Japanese troops arrived.

Raba didn't want the job, but no one

else was willing to take it. I give in

for the sake of a good cause, he wrote

in his diary. I hope I prove worthy of

the post.

Establishing the safe zone was a

monumental task. They needed food,

water, sanitation, police, doctors,

medicine, clothes, fuel, and countless

other things that Raba and his

colleagues had little to no experience

dealing with. Nevertheless, they worked

as hard as they could. Raba reached out

to Chinese authorities for supplies and

advice, penned letters to his company

and foreign embassies, and spread word

throughout the city about the zone's

work. Raba gave everything he could. He

usually only slept 2 to 3 hours a night.

He turned his home into a refugee center

where he sheltered some 300 civilians.

He laid out the largest Nazi flag he

could find over his garden so the

bombers could see it and know to avoid

hitting it. Raba, who was diabetic, even

gave out his own limited supply of

insulin to people he thought needed it

more. All of that work was being done

when they didn't even know if the safety

zone would be accepted. The want and

destruction by the Japanese meant it was

very likely they would simply march in

with guns blazing regardless of what

Raba and his allies said. It wasn't

helped by the actions of Chinese General

Tang Shengi who also refused to

recognize the zone's neutrality. His

villa was in the safety zone and he set

up machine gun and artillery positions

nearby despite the safety zone

committee's protests. On November 25th,

Raba wrote in his diary that he feared

the Japanese would just ignore them and

attack the zone anyway. He believed that

only diplomatic pressure from Germany

would restrain them. "What are we to do

if the plan doesn't work?" he wrote that

evening. "The danger is truly great. My

hope is Hitler." In fact, Rabba sent

multiple telegrams directly to the Furer

throughout the coming weeks asking him

to intervene to protect the civilians.

Hitler never replied. On December 2nd,

Raba finally got a reply from the

Japanese that they could not recognize

the safety zone's neutrality. They

believed it was a military necessity to

do so since they said the Chinese would

use it in the defense. However, the

telegram did concede that troops on the

ground would quote endeavor to respect

the district as far as consistent with

military policy. It was a non-committal

response for Raba and the safety zone

leaders. It was less than they'd hoped,

but better than they'd feared. At least

the Japanese weren't outright refusing

to recognize it.

By December 6th, the Japanese troops

were mere miles from the city walls, and

most of the Chinese military leadership

had now fled. General Tang remained, but

refused to honor the zone's neutrality.

His presence made every refugee a target

for the Japanese. His troops also made

the situation worse by burning down

homes on the outskirts of the city. It

was supposed to deny the Japanese cover

and supplies, but it also drove

thousands of new refugees into the zone

every day. On December 9th, Raba

inspected the zone for military

presence, only to find that Tang had set

up anti-aircraft guns inside. As Raba

was arguing with Tang's men at the guns,

three Japanese bombers appeared overhead

and the guns opened fire. By sheer luck,

the Japanese bombers broke off and

didn't drop their bombs, which would

easily have killed Raba, wiped out the

guns, and spelled the end of the safety

zone. Desperate times called for

desperate measures. Raba pleaded with

Tong to listen, and eventually Tong gave

in. If Raba could get Chang Kaishek's

permission to abandon the city, he would

leave. By now, the Japanese were at the

gates. The sound of machine gun fire was

constant through the night. Japanese

radio broadcasts proudly declared that

the city would fall within 24 hours.

Raba could not hope to count the number

of refugees now. Far too many to house

anyway. Every single street in the zone

was covered in makeshift camps. Women

and children curled up in al coes of

shop windows as Japanese planes roared

overhead. All the while, Tong's soldiers

refuse to leave. The zone is a long way

from being safe, Raba admitted on the

morning of December 11th. The Japanese

could be mere hours away from taking the

city. And when they did, they considered

the zone a legitimate target. Barely an

hour after Rabo wrote those words, the

first explosives landed in the zone.

Japanese shells hit refugees sheltering

at hotels and schools within the zone,

killing dozens. Over the next few days,

the Japanese battered the city. From his

position in the safety zone, Kaba could

see the fires rising from the city and

its surrounding land. An old saying

declared that when nearby Purple

Mountain burned, Nank King would be

lost. Now the mountainside was drenched

in flames and the Japanese were more

than capable of fulfilling the prophecy.

By December 13th, even General Tong had

abandoned the city and the Japanese

controlled most of the city gates.

Already the city is a graveyard. We come

across corpses every 100 to 200 y. The

bodies of civilians had bullet holes in

their backs. They had been fleeing and

were shot from behind. Later that day,

the Japanese seized the city. The

occupation was worse than the bombing.

Harbor was helpless as Japanese troops

raped and looted everyone and everything

outside the safety zone. Piles of

corpses lined the streets as the

Japanese ensured that every disarmed

Chinese soldier was rounded up and shot.

The Japanese rampaged in groups of 10 to

20 men, looting and killing as they

went. The soldiers took everything they

could get their hands on. Once they'd

looted a building, they burned it,

resulting in constant uncontrolled fires

across the city, many of which spread to

buildings in the safety zone. The

reality of Japan's foreign alliances

meant that the soldiers hesitated to

attack the safety zone directly. Kaba

and the other committee members could

move through the city without much issue

and could even confront Japanese

soldiers who were looting. Although the

soldiers rarely listened to them, the

Japanese weren't fond of the Americans.

But Raba's swastika armband was enough

to stop their worst offenses if he was

there. On the night of December 16th,

for example, the Japanese tried to force

an entry into his property where

hundreds of civilians were still hiding.

They had almost climbed the walls when

Raba appeared and flashed his Nazi

armband, which was enough to get them to

back off. It was a hollow victory. The

next morning, he found a woman lying in

the alley behind his garden. She'd been

raped, then stabbed in the neck by a

bayonet. Kaba recorded with despair that

Japanese soldiers were able to enter the

safety zone to round up hundreds of

Chinese workers or disarmed soldiers at

a time. We assumed they were shot since

we later heard several salvos of machine

gun fire. One of the conditions of the

safety zone was that it would be

unarmed. That effectively gave the

Japanese free reign if they kept clear

of the Europeans.

Raba received reports that over 1,000

women were being raped every night. If

any Chinese tried to intervene, they

were simply shot. Raba personally

intervened to stop several rapes. Just

on December 18th, after driving off more

soldiers from his garden and rescuing

one of his cars which had been stolen,

Raba's neighbor rushed over to ask his

help to stop four Japanese soldiers

raping his wife. Raba stormed into the

house and stopped the soldiers before

the worst could happen. Then he returned

home only to find two more Japanese back

at his house attempting to rape another

refugee, but he scared them off. A few

hours later, he sent a friend's wife to

the hospital for urgent treatment, only

to find that many of the hospital's

nurses were unable to work since they

had been raped, too. That same night, 20

more women sheltering in the house next

to his office were raped, too. Rabo

wrote countless letters to the Japanese

authorities, begging them to reign in

their men. The officers were generally

courteous to him, but their courtesy

meant nothing without action, which

never came. Instead, more bodies were

piled on every day, adding to those

already lying in the streets. The

Chinese were not brave enough and the

Japanese did not care enough to bury

most of them. The sight and stench of

rotting corpses was on every street

corner. The scale was simply

overwhelming. On Christmas Eve, Raba

visited the hospital where the morg was

overflowing.

Each body was a testament to a new

horror. Men with eyes burned out of

their faces or women riddled with

bayonet holes. The body of a little boy,

maybe 7 years old, had four bayonet

wounds in it, one in the belly about as

long as your finger. He died 2 days

after being admitted. He recorded in one

entry. After days of seeing the worst

atrocities imaginable, Rabo was becoming

desensitized to it. But he had his duty.

I wanted to see these atrocities with my

own eyes, he wrote, so that I can speak

as an eyewitness later. A man cannot be

silent about this kind of cruelty. Yet

Raba knew that if he did speak up to the

wrong people, even his Nazi credentials

wouldn't save him. When he threatened to

tell the press about the atrocities, one

Japanese officer warned him that a

single word to the press would turn the

army against him. But Raba did not

remain silent. For six long weeks of the

occupation, Raba worked tirelessly to

protect the people of Nan King. He and

the 20 other Europeans and Americans

operating the safety zone worked to keep

the refugees fed and organized,

negotiating with Japanese officers for

supplies and trying to allocate medical

care where it was needed. All the while,

Raba was on constant call to step in to

stop another rape or murder. Not a day

went by where Hara was not summoned to

some crisis or another, appearing with

his Nazi badge and booming German voice

to scare away the attacker. But for

every crime he stopped, he knew a

thousand more were beyond his reach.

Raba became a hero to the people of Nan

King. People threw themselves at his

feet to thank him for his work and

followed him around for protection. His

name became the most popular choice for

newborn boys born in the zone. And that

of his wife Dora was the top for girls.

But Raba himself never considered

himself a hero. He was a man with the

power to help people in a time of need.

And there was no question in his mind

that he had a duty to do what he could.

It was all so obvious, he wrote. None of

it has anything to do with heroics.

Amazingly, through the whole affair,

Raba remained a devoted Nazi. He even

wrote detailed reports of what he saw

and sent them back to Germany addressed

to Hitler himself. Raba described the

horrors in vivid detail, believing

wholeheartedly that the Furer would step

in when he learned of the terrible

suffering of non King civilians.

The safety zone continued operations

through January and into February. Every

day brought fresh atrocities. Each day

meant more rapes, more fires, and more

corpses. Raba kept up appearances by

being polite and diplomatic to the

occupiers. But in his private diary, he

wrote with disgust about having to sit

and pretend to be friendly at meetings

with the Japanese when he had walked

past piles of Chinese corpses every day.

The worst of the violence had passed by

February 1938.

The city was in ruins. Virtually

everything and everyone outside of the

safety zone had been destroyed.

The safety zone staff had time to start

burying bodies. But even burying

hundreds every day barely made a dent in

the number of corpses littering the

streets. At last, on February 8th, the

Japanese declared the battle over and

ordered the safety zone to be disbanded.

After weeks of hardship and sacrifice,

Raba and other members of the safety

zone committee had no choice but to

obey. With the worst of the crisis over,

funding and support would dry up and

refugees were finally starting to drift

back towards what little remained of

their homes beyond the safety zone. Raba

remained for several weeks after the

zone was disbanded, managing the

transition and helping the early phases

of the cleanup. But on February 23rd,

Raba and his family finally boarded a

ship. bid farewell to the crowd that

turned out to say goodbye and sailed for

home. It had been 30 years since he'd

set foot in Germany. But Raba did not

get the welcome he hoped for. Raba had

gained international media attention for

his work in Nan King and had spoken

publicly about the atrocities he'd seen.

The Nazis did not like having their ally

in the east portrayed in such a negative

light. The German press did not

publicize his return or his lectures in

the following months. Having written to

and about Hitler many times, Rabo was

disappointed to find all his letters to

the Furer went unanswered.

Instead, a few months after arriving, he

was arrested by the Gestapo and

interrogated.

He was released after a few hours, but

all his photographs and film footage of

the massacre was confiscated and he was

banned from speaking about Nanking in

public again. For a man who'd shown so

much bravery and principle, it may be

disappointing to learn that he accepted

the orders without complaint. Raba

stopped talking about Nanking and

returned to his work at Seaman's AG,

which he continued until 1945.

Kaba fell into poverty after the war.

But when news of this reached Nank King,

the people of the city flooded him with

donations and sent him regular packages

of food and money. Raba died of a stroke

in January 1950,

ignored and forgotten by his countrymen,

but honored by the 250,000

civilians he helped save in Nan King.

Today, Rabba is hailed as a hero and

none king. His house is now a museum and

he is honored at the city's memorial for

the massacre. He has also received more

attention in Germany with a monument

being raised at his grave site. And

several films have been produced in

Chinese and English celebrating his

work. He has been described as the

Buddha of Nan King and the Oscar

Schindler of China. High honors for a

man who proudly wore a swastika armband

and never repented of his Nazi

allegiance. The life of John Raba is a

strange reminder that every person, no

matter how lost they may seem, can

choose to do good.