Any person who ran because of fear was likely to be killed on the spot
as was any one caught by roving patrols in streets or alleys after dark.
Many of the victims were aged men, women and children. Nanjing's streets
were littered with dead. Sometimes bodies had to be moved before automobiles
could pass.
Many were killed where they were found, including men innocent of any army connection and many wounded soldiers and civilians. A favorite method of execution was to herd groups of a dozen men at entrances of dugout and to shoot them so the bodies toppled inside. Dirt then was shoveled in and the men buried.
Thousands
of women were raped by the Japanese soldiers during the six weeks
of the Nanjing Massacre, most were brutally killed afterwards. The Japanese
soldiers even raped girls less than ten, women over seventy, pregnant women,
and nuns. Rampant raping took place in the streets or at religious worshiping
places during the day. Many women were gang raped. Some Japanese even forced
fathers to rape their daughters, sons to rape their mothers, as
other family members watched. Those who resisted were killed immediately.
In order to survive, people hid in holes in the ground. Some women dressed in rags, or shaved their heads and smeared soot over their faces so they would appear to be too ugly or diseased to be raped.... There were people who pretended to be dead, then clawed their way out of half buried graves or hid under mounds of bodies.
