History A pawn shop owner’s TikTok video claiming to hold rare Nanjing Massacre images attracted over 31 million views

The proprietor of a pawn store is being criticized on social media by history enthusiasts for publishing unverified images of the Nanking Massacre on TikTok.

The Nanjing Massacre occurred between December 1937 and January 1938, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when the Japanese Imperial Army massacred a large number of Chinese citizens. According to Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, between 100,000 and 300,000 people perished in the atrocity.

Evan Kail, who broadcasts videos on TikTok about his pawn shop findings under the moniker @pawn.man, claimed to be in possession of a book containing never-before-seen photographs of the slaughter on September 1. In the following week, it gained close to 25 million views. By September 23, the video had received over 31 million views.

According to him, the photo album was brought in by a client whose cousin, presumably an American Navy man stationed in Southeast Asia in the late 1930s.

“Somehow, the photographer was present at the Rape of Nanking, and he captured approximately thirty photographs that are worse than anything I’ve ever seen on the internet,” he stated.

Kail stated that the album featured photographs that were too “disturbing” to display, and he pleaded with his audience to help make the video go viral so that museums would seek him out and purchase the album for historical preservation.

Kail uploaded some of the images to Twitter, which resulted in a severe backlash as numerous tweets questioned their veracity.

False history investigator (@fakehistoryhunt)

September 1, 2022

A historian named Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, who operates the Twitter account Fake History Hunter, stated in a Twitter thread that the images were likely from the 1930s, but were not as rare as Kail claimed, and that several of the images were already available online.

Before making historical claims, Teeuwisse advised Rolling Stone readers to “first consult other specialists or museums.”

Timothy Brooks, a historian who specializes in China during the Japanese occupation, stated in an article published on September 20 in The New Yorker that he believed Kail’s collection to be “a mishmash of original photographs of American sailors, souvenir prints of violence, and Chinese- and Japanese-issued propaganda shots,” as at least five of the prints contained Japanese inscriptions. Brook does not believe that the sailor could have been in these locations and taken these shots, and he observes that one of the images is a 1904 print of a public execution in Beijing.

“Asia is exoticized by the sailor’s presentation of these photographs,” Brook told the journal. “He views China and Japan as locations of conflict, brutality, and torture. Which is not to imply that the images are false, but they must be contextualized appropriately.”

Kail, who told the outlet he had transferred the book to a “safe location” and starting wearing a face mask and ballistic vest, has hired a lawyer and closed his shop following an unsettling meeting with a client. “I unwittingly created this contentious and emotionally charged issue,” he told the site.

Some readers complimented Kail for sharing the photos and educated them on the tragedies of the slaughter, while others requested that he scan the images digitally and upload them online so that they would not be lost to history.

Brooks stated that he has observed Chinese individuals expressing increased indignation about the event online, despite the fact that “as far as I can tell, none of these images are from Nanjing.”

Kail’s initial response to the nasty remarks was a TikTok video uploaded on Twitter. In the video, he stated that he has been accused of perpetrating a hoax, which he disputed, and that individuals who have not seen the album for themselves cannot be certain of its authenticity.

He also tweeted that he is seeking authentication from “many illustrious individuals” but did not specify who they were or whether he was in contact with historical organizations or academics.

Several days later, however, on September 7, Kail told NBC News that he now believed the photographs were shot in Shanghai and not Nanjing. He declined to elaborate. Later, Kail admitted initially mistaking Nanjing Road for the Chinese capital.

“My error was making a false alarm,” he told The New Yorker. “I should have exercised greater caution.” He also voiced concern about posting “flippant” TikToks, which was his favorite style for @pawn.man.

Even if the entire book turns out to be a hoax, it sparked a fruitful dialogue, he told the outlet. “I have educated so many people on this topic by mistake… Therefore, not all is lost.”