Don Tow's Website

This year (2017) marks the 80th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre, one of the worst atrocities in human history.  It is a time in history that:

• atrocious cruelties were inflicted by one group of humans on another group of humans where within six weeks about 300,000 Chinese (including civilians, women and children) just in the city of Nanking were killed by the Japanese Imperial Army, and where about 20,000 women and girls were raped
• a group of courageous men and women (most were foreigners from Western countries), now called upstanders, who risked their own lives and set up an International Safety Zone in Nanking that sheltered and saved about 250,000 Chinese from being slaughtered and thousands of Chinese women and girls from being raped
• lessons can be learned, because similar types of atrocities can occur again in many parts of this world if we don’t learn from this part of history
• reminds us of the power of one, i.e., one person or a small group of persons can start a movement that can change the world

Here is the complete Powerpoint presentation that was presented on December 6, 2017 at the “Nanking Massacre 80th Anniversary Commemoration” at the Monmouth County Library Headquarter in Manalapan, New Jersey that was organized by the New Jersey Alliance for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia (NJ-ALPHA). Since this complete file is very large (95 MB), it may take a couple of minutes to load, so have patience.  Here is the much smaller Powerpoint presentation without the embedded audio files (611 KB). Read More »

On July 14-27, 2017, a group of 17 people participated in a two-week immersion program to study WWII history in Asia.  Ten are from the U.S., six are from Canada, and one is a Canadian citizen currently living in Hong Kong.  WWII history in Asia is seldom taught in American or Canadian high schools with the result that Americans and Canadians in general know very little about that part of WWII history.  The purpose of the Peace and Reconciliation Asia Study Tour is to increase the knowledge of the participants of WWII history in Asia, especially with respect to the massive and inhumane atrocities committed by the Japanese military on China, Korea, and other countries in Asia.  Hopefully upon their return, they would help with the movement to establish peace and reconciliation by seeking justice for these atrocities.  The purpose then is to learn about that part of history to help prevent those happenings from occurring again in the future anywhere on earth.  The Asia Study Tour is sponsored by the non-profit educational organization New Jersey Alliance for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia (NJ-ALPHA).  This article describes the highlights of the 2017 Asia Study Tour.
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