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Ep. 356: The Fog of War and Humanity

Host: Richard Acritelli
Guest: Jenny Chan
hmTv / Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center

In this riveting continuation of her conversation with host Richard Acritelli, researcher and historian Jenny Chan pulls back the curtain on one of the most brutal and often overlooked chapters of World War II: the Japanese invasion of China and the Rape of Nanking.

Picking up where Part 1 left off, Jenny explains how Japan’s failure to take Shanghai quickly fueled rage and retaliation that spilled into Nanking — leading to mass executions, sexual violence, and the public glorification of killing. She exposes the shocking “100-man beheading contest,” the abandonment of civilians by Chiang Kai-shek, and the systematic policies that enabled atrocity.

Richard and Jenny also explore:

• How Shanghai became a rare refuge for Jews fleeing the Holocaust
• Why Japan’s war criminals were enshrined as heroes rather than condemned
• The U.S.–Japan Cold War alliance that protected perpetrators and elevated them to political power
• The forgotten USS Panay attack — a preview of Pearl Harbor hidden in plain sight
• How Depression-era isolationism kept Americans silent while atrocities unfolded
• The stark contrast between Germany’s reckoning and Japan’s denial

Jenny also highlights overlooked diplomatic heroes like Ho Feng-shan, who issued life-saving visas for Jewish refugees — reshaping the narrative that Holocaust refuge only appeared in Europe or Palestine.

This episode confronts uncomfortable truths: how nations rewrite history, how political convenience erases accountability, and how forgotten atrocities still echo in modern geopolitics.

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