Thomas Podvin “Lest we forget” that’s Shanghai November 2007, pp.76-78
来月公開される、アイリス・チャン(張純如)を主人公にした映画The Woman Who Couldn’t Forget: The Iris Chang Storyの監督Willliam Spahicへのインタヴュー。
“Before the release of Chang’s book, how was the Nanking massacre perceived in North America?”という質問に対して、
Willliam Spahic自身も南京大虐殺を知ったのは、息子の歴史の宿題を通してだったという;
(…)Very few non-Chinese people in North America knew about Nanking. Her book more than any other event changed that forever. Most of the recent spate of documentatries and feature films on the subject credit Iris Chang’s book for opening their eyes to those terrible events in 1937. (p.77)
The Rape of Nankingが書かれた経緯;
We first heard about Nanking from our son Matthew in grade 10 here in Tronto, who wanted to do a historical assignment on holocaust. We thought that meant the Jewish holocaust in Europe but he chose the Nanking holocaust instead. In helping him proofread his essay we learned about the Nanking massacre. (ibid.)
Iris had just completed but not published her first book, Thread of a Silkworm and looking for a subject for her next book. She was aware of the Nanking massacre from her parents, whose families narrowly escaped before the Japanese took Shanghai and Nanking. She saw pictures of the atrocities and realized for the first time that she was witnessing real people’s lives at the very moment of their death. She did not perceive them as nameless statistics or objective historical events but as real human beings in real tragic events. She determined to do something about it.
Iris was deeply influenced by what she found in China on her research trip, especially interviewing about a dozen survivors. That left a deep emotional motivation for her to write the book. (pp.77-78)