The photocopies of Documents of the Nanjing Massacre the Memory of the World Register and The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe were made public on Monday.
The photocopy of The Diaries of John Rabe contains eight books in six volumes by collecting the original diaries and the official letters, government reports, news reports and photos collected by Rabe, chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone.
John Rab was a German businessman and Nazi Party member who is best known for his efforts to stop the atrocities of the Japanese army during the Nanking Occupation and his work to protect and help the Chinese civilians during the event. The Nanking Safety Zone, which he helped to establish, sheltered approximately 200,000 Chinese people from slaughter during the massacre.
The 20-volume compilation of the Documents of the Nanjing Massacre consists of three parts: the first part concerns the period of the massacre between 1937 and 1938, the second part is related to the post-war investigation and trials of war criminals documented by the Chinese National Government's Military Tribunal between 1945 and 1947, and the third part deals with files documented by the judiciary authorities of the People's Republic of China between 1952 and 1956.
The documents have gathered together views of experts over their years of research on Nanjing Massacre, with full descriptions of the documents’ features, their historical values and impact. All the descriptions have the full support of academic research. The title, for instance, is a standardized Chinese official terminology, and also in line with the customary description of the incident by the public.
The photocopies of the documents are released around the world online and offline simultaneously.
The year 2017 marks the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, in which more than 300,000 Chinese were killed by the Japanese invaders who occupied Nanjing on Dec. 13, 1937, marking the start of six weeks of destruction, pillage, rape and slaughter in the city.
