More names on Nanjing Massacre memorial wall
Atotal of 110 names have been newly inscribed on a memorial wall in commemoration of Chinese killed in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese troops in 1937, bringing the total number of names on the wall to 10,615 These names have been confirmed since 2014 after relatives filed at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, where the wall was erected, deputy curator Wang Weimin said.
Li Ning said his great-grandfather Li Jinbo and grandfather Li Cunren were killed by the bayonets and guns of Japanese troops in the massacre when they refused to be a guide for the troops. “I did not know they were massacre victims until three years ago when my father asked me to file their records as solicited by the memorial hall,” he said. “May they rest in peace.” Designed by architect Qi Kang from Southeast University, the memorial wall, also known as the wailing wall, was set up in 1995 with 3000 names representing the 300,000 victims of the massacre. More names were added in 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2014, after the identities of more victims were confirmed, Mr Wang said. He said the names were confirmed by the city’s committees on wartime loss and Nanjing Massacre investigations, survivors’ dictated or published documents and information from victims’ relatives. “The new names will be inscribed on the wall every year before National Memorial Day, but the confirmation work is difficult,” he said. Japanese troops occupied eastern China’s Nanjing on Dec. 13, 1937, and began a six-week massacre. Chinese records show more than 300,000 people -- not only disarmed soldiers but also civilians -- were brutally murdered and thousands of women raped. Xinhua