Circle of remembrance
American re-documents his grandfather’s films of Nanjing Massacre
Chris Magee, 59, never met his grandfather, John Magee, who died five years before Chris was born. But he grew up in the US listening to his family talk about the man many in China consider a hero.
He knew John went to China in the 1930s as a missionary, but he only found out after he grew up that his grandfather is a revered person in China.
In 1937, John Magee filmed the Nanjing Massacre, when 300,000 people were killed by Japanese troops. The massacre still remains largely unknown among the Western public, Chris Magee said.
Chris Magee is on a mission to retrace his grandfather’s footsteps. He came to Nanjing this year to re-document through his own photographs the sites that his grandfather had filmed. He hopes his work will help keep the memory of the victims and his grandfather’s contribution to telling the true story alive.
A family history
Chris Magee’s early childhood was spent in Hong Kong, but he learned nothing about the Nanjing Massacre.
When he moved to the US for high school in the 1970s, he visited his uncle David Magee, who kept John Magee’s legacy in his garage. This is where he first saw the trove of documents, detailing his grandfather’s work: a film camera, photos, diaries and letters.
They reveal a terrifying story in which the elder Magee put himself in mortal danger in order to reveal the truth of the brutal occupation of Nanjing by the Japanese.
“I still cry every time I read the documents,” Chris Magee said.
The story began on December 3, 1937, when the US government issued a warning urging American citizens to evacuate from China. John Magee, then 53 years old, chose to stay.
After occupying Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province, Japanese troops on December 13, 1937, began their murder spree. Like a few other brave foreigners, Magee wrote descriptive accounts of the murders of local people. Their accounts told a completely different story from Japanese government propaganda films.
However, the general public in the West still knows little about the war crimes inflicted upon the Chinese people. “People know about the holocaust, but they don’t know anything about the Nanjing massacre. Most don’t even know where Nanjing is,” Magee said.
In 1997, the book Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang was published and broke the silence. It created a lot of discussion in the West. In 2002, David Magee donated his father’s camera and four rolls of film to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
When walking into the memorial hall, a bust of John Magee as well as his photos and film footage are showcased.
There’s footage of 8-year-old Xia Shuqin and her 4-year-old sister who were in shock after their entire family was murdered by Japanese soldiers.
During his visit to China this August, he met Xia. “When you are meeting someone like that, it brings you full emotional impact, it’s not like reading a book in a library,” said Magee.
Bringing it full circle
Magee has always wanted to come to Nanjing, to see where his father and uncles spent their childhood. “It wasn’t until I got to Nanjing, and I started walking around, did the connection start becoming vivid and real,” he said. “It becomes really strong, you can feel the history here.”
Before leaving Nanjing, Magee had dinner with the director of the Memorial Hall Zhang Jianjun. Magee said he wanted to see the sites where his grandfather had filmed, and Zhang agreed, suggesting it might result in a book that would become part of the exhibit.
Magee’s project includes filming at the same locations his grandfather had filmed at and showing a comparison.
So far, Magee has taken photos and videos at Nanjing’s Drum Tower Hospital, where his grandfather filmed many victims being treated. Magee took a photo of the modern day hospital, where patients were being treated in a setting with advanced equipment. There was also a photo of John Magee and his oldest son at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, where Chris Magee took a photo of Xia’s granddaughter and her child.
“I still have so much work to do, so many photos and videos,” he said. “But it’s really meaningful. Looking back at this, I really find it’s a full circle.”