Starting his diary

On 7 September 1937 John Rabe returned to Nanjing from the beach resort Beidaihe (Peitaiho) in Eastern Hebei where he had spent most of August with his wife Dora. For safety reasons, he had left behind Dora in Beidaihe. She later moved to Tianjin and then Shanghai. In February 1938 John was reunited with Dora in Shanghai where he stopped on their way back home to Germany via Hong Kong. Rabe's first diary entry is dated 21 September 1937. Rabe writes about his family, the situation in Nanjing...