The family commemoration for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre was launched on Friday in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. The family memorial event came just over two weeks ahead of China's ninth National Memorial Day to commemorate the victims of the Nanjing Massacre on Dec. 13.
Families of the victims will pay tribute to their loved ones by various means, including presenting flowers and offering incense.
Some massacre survivors, including Xia Shuqin, Ai Yiying and Liu Minsheng, and their family members attended the activity in the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
They bowed low, laid flowers, offered incense and mourned for the victims in silence in front of the "Wailing Wall" at the memorial hall, which has a total of 10,665 names of the victims engraved on it.
Xia Tiaxing, Ge Fengjin, and Yu Huiru, descendants of survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, presented flowers and paid tribute to their loved ones.
89-year-old Liu Minsheng was only three years old when he experienced the holocaust. The tragedy of that winter is still vivid in his mind, just like the scars on his body that is difficult to fade away.
“The Japs stormed into the safety zone in trucks and drove all the people living inside to the playground. It was cold outside, so I cried. A Japanese soldier snarled at me with a bayonet in his hand and stabbed me in the leg. I will always remember this day,” said Liu Minsheng, a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre.
The survivors of the Nanjing Massacre are the most powerful witnesses to this atrocity, but the witnesses are fading away. At present, there are only 38 registered survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, with an average age of over 93. Inheriting history, spreading truth, and conveying beliefs have become the common mission of future generations.
“As inheritors of historical memory, we have the responsibility to publicize this period of history to society, with the aim of letting more young people understand this history, building our country stronger, and preventing historical tragedies from happening again,” said Huang Xinghua, the son of Ai Yiying who is a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre.
On Dec. 13, 1937, the Japanese invading troops captured Nanjing, then the Chinese capital. In the ensuing six weeks, the invaders killed more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers.
