George Ashmore Fitch (1883–1979) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

, Nanking Safety Zone International Committee Administrative Director, and the

grandfather Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

George B. Fitch George Bradley Fitch (February 7, 1948 – December 30, 2014) was a business consultant and Republican politician. He served four consecutive terms as the mayor of Warrenton, Virginia, for a total of 16 years, before retiring in June 2014. He ...

. Fitch was born in

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...

, the son of

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their n ...

missionaries George F. and Mary (McLellan) Fitch. He graduated from the

College of Wooster The College of Wooster is a private liberal arts college in Wooster, Ohio. Founded in 1866 by the Presbyterian Church as the University of Wooster, it has been officially non-sectarian since 1969 when ownership ties with the Presbyterian Church ...

, Ohio, in 1906, and Union Theological Seminary in New York with a

Bachelor of Divinity In Western universities, a Bachelor of Divinity or Baccalaureate in Divinity (BD or BDiv; la, Baccalaureus Divinitatis) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded for a course taken in the study of divinity or related disciplines, such as theolog ...

in 1909. He was

ordain Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform var ...

ed in the Presbyterian Church in 1909 and went to China to work with YMCA in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

Nanking Massacre

When the

Nanking Massacre The Nanjing Massacre (, ja, 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the ...

occurred in 1937–1938, Fitch, who was head of YMCA there, served as director of the

International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone The International Committee was established in 1937 order to establish and manage the Nanking Safety Zone. Many Westerners were living in the city at that time, conducting trade or on missionary trips. As the Imperial Japanese Army began to app ...

. He compiled a diary and filmed some of the atrocities committed by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emper ...

in Nanking in December 1937. December 24, 1937 Writing later in his

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

, Fitch said, "My story created a sensation in

, for it was the first news of what had happened in the capital since its evacuation, and it was copied and mimeographed and widely distributed there." In 1938 Fitch traveled throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

giving talks about the Nanking Massacre and showing films to document it. In the 2007 documentary film ''Nanking'', Fitch was portrayed by actor John Getz. After George Fitch departed, Hubert Lafayette Sone was elected administrative director of the Nanjing International Relief Committee, successor to the Nanking Safety Zone.

Subsequent career

Fitch returned to China in 1939 to serve with YMCA and later with the

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part o ...

until 1947. He then served YMCA in

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

until 1961, when he retired in the United States. He died in

Claremont, California Claremont () is a suburban city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles. It is in the Pomona Valley, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 census it had a popu ...

. Fitch was a

Freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

Bibliography

*George A. and Geraldine T. Fitch, My Eighty Years in China (1967)

References

External links

*http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/f/fitch-george-ashmore.php *http://www.interq.or.jp/sheep/clarex/discovery/discoverylog03.html *http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/html/ymca/yusa0012.phtml *https://web.archive.org/web/20070922143410/http://www.history.gr.jp/~nanking/nanking.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Fitch, George Ashmore 1883 births 1979 deaths American Freemasons American Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in China People assisting Chinese during the Nanjing Massacre American humanitarians American expatriates in China YMCA leaders

Nanking Massacre

Subsequent career

Bibliography

Further reading

References

External links