Nanjing mourns victims of massacre
Print Edition
THE third national memorial day was held in eastern Chinese city of Nanjing yesterday to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of people murdered during the Japanese invasion almost eight decades ago.
On December 13, 1937, Nanjing, the ancient Chinese capital for six dynasties, fell to Japanese invaders who went on to slaughter civilians for more than a month. About 300,000 Chinese were killed and 20,000 women were raped in six weeks.
Amid chilly wind and drizzle, more than 8,000 people gathered at a square in front of the Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province. The mourners were dressed in black, with white flowers pinned to their chests.
Sirens blared for one minute throughout the city. Doves flew, cars stopped, and pedestrians stood still to mourn the dead in silence. The ceremony was broadcast live in Nanjing’s public venues, including subway stations where commuters paused to watch.
Drivers honked horns in a commercial street to echo the siren. One of them, a 36-year-old man surnamed Xu, gestured to a roadside electronic screen with the slogan “Victory for Justice, Victory for People, Victory for Peace,” saying: “That’s our common aspiration.”
Xia Shuqin, 87, wept as she watched the ceremony proceed. She and her younger sister were the only survivors in a family of nine. Xia said she had attended the memorial day event for the past three years and would continue to do so.
The Nanjing Massacre is seen in China as the nadir of an era in which it was bullied and humiliated by foreign powers. In February 2014, China’s top legislature designated December 13 as the national memorial day.
“Without a strong army and a powerful state, Chinese people would have never stood up,” said Shi Jianwei, a Nanjing retiree who attended the ceremony. “We should turn the lessons of humiliation into a motive for the nation’s rejuvenation.”
Meanwhile, a three-episode documentary providing rare footage of the Tokyo Trials began airing yesterday.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trials, when the Allied Forces tried Japanese war criminals at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo after World War II. The proceedings played an important part in shaping the postwar Asia-Pacific order.
Some rare footage, including witnesses’ testimony and war criminals defending themselves in court, was being broadcast for the first time in China.
In one episode, US missionary John Gillespie Magee is seen giving testimony.
“It was unbelievably terrible,” Magee said as he recalled witnessing hundreds of civilians slaughtered by Japanese troops in a school in Nanjing in 1937.
The documentary, produced by the Copyright Assets Management Center of SMG & Shanghai Audio-Visual Archives, was edited from more than 28 hours of footage.
“We’ve found footage of the witnesses taken from various angles. It was surprising they had put so many cameras in court,” said Zhu Xiaoqian, director of the documentary.
The new series is being broadcast in English with Mandarin subtitles.
Two other versions, in Chinese and Japanese, will be released.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
