Hailing from different countries, some foreigners have been committed to recording and disseminating historical facts on the Nanjing Massacre, safeguarding peace with the kind of love and efforts that transcend national borders.
Chris Magee: Nanjing yesterday and today in photos
Photo provided by the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
American priest John Magee secretly filmed Japanese atrocities with a 16-mm camera during the Nanjing Massacre. In August 2017, his grandson Chris Magee was presented a peace medal in Nanjing on behalf of John Magee. As a photographer himself, Chris had an idea – take photos of the living conditions of Nanjing and its people today, then make a comparison with the old images to introduce the history of the Nanjing Massacre to the world and also spread the idea of cherishing peace.
He then came to Nanjing to take photos for three sessions between October and December 2017, selecting scenes that appeared in his grandfather’s film, and then tried to take photos at the same sites 80 years later. He also took photos at venues featured in classic old photos taken during the Republican period.
On December 13, Chris Magee’s photography exhibition was held at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, which will also be shown in other countries. He said he hopes more people can see the Magee family’s photos, understand the tragic history of the massacre, know about China yesterday and today, and realize how people can survive and thrive in a war-torn region to build a new world.
Tamaki Matsuoka: Truth-seeking journey for 30 years
Photo/Yu Ping
Tamaki Matsuoka, a former primary school teacher in Japan, has spent the last 30 years interviewing survivors and victimizers of the Nanjing Massacre to reveal the historical truth about the massacre to the Japanese people.
On December 11, the 71-year-old visited Nanjing for the 100th time.
As a teacher, she found history textbooks in Japan vague and ambiguous about the massacre, calling it the “Nanjing Accident” and describing by simply saying “many people died in the city.” So she decided to find out the truth. In 1988, she visited Nanjing for the first time, starting a long, reflective truth-seeking journey.
Over the following 30 years, Matsuoka interviewed about 250 Japanese WWII veterans and 300 victims. Based on their testimonies, Matsuoka wrote books and produced three documentaries to convey the historical truth. Last April, she donated video and image materials to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
In her 100th visit to Nanjing, Matsuoka also attended the 5th National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims and met with her old friend Xie Guifen, one of the survivors of the massacre.
Christian Poirot: the story of Nanjing Massacre in paintings
Photo provided by the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
French oil painter Christian Poirot has created a series of works to reveal Nanjing’s tragic wartime history and humiliating past, enabling more people to know about the Nanjing Massacre.
The painter said oil painting as an art form can help Westerners come to understand the history more easily.
On December 12, 2015, he donated a painting to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. The painting depicts scenes of violence during the massacre, confronting viewers with the bloody ordeal suffered by victims. Then on December 12, 2017, he donated five paintings about so-called comfort women -- a euphemism for girls and women forced into sex slavery by the Japanese during WWII -- to a museum built on the former site of a "comfort women" station on Liji Lane in Nanjing.
In 2015, he became an honorary citizen of Nanjing and in 2018 was featured in the “Face of Nanjing”, a program to introduce the city to the world audience through the stories of 10 people. The “Face of Nanjing” was also a part of Nanjing Week, the city’s signature promotional event held the world’s major cities.
Poirot said he had long talks with some visitors to the Nanjing Week in Paris, introduced Nanjing to them along with the history of Nanjing Massacre. He also said he wants to spread the message that people need to cherish the hard-won peace.
