MUSEUMS ACROSS NATION COMMEMORATE NANJING MASSACRE VICTIMS

Beijing:

Museums across China held various activities on Thursday to commemorate the 300,000 victims of the Nanjing Massacre committed by Japanese invaders during the Second World War.

Japanese troops occupied Nanjing, then China’s capital, on Dec. 13, 1937, and began a sixweek massacre. Chinese records show that more than 300,000 people -- both unarmed soldiers and civilians -- were brutally murdered and over 20,000 women raped.

In February 2014, China designated December 13 as “National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims” to mourn the victims as well as all those killed during the war against Japanese aggression.

Historic museums across the country held memorial services, lectures, and exhibitions to mark the day and raise people’s awareness of the sorrowful past.

In Nanjing, the memorial hall for the victims opened a photography exhibition on Thursday, featuring photos and video taken by John Magee, an American missionary who was stationed in Nanjing during the massacre, and the shots of the city today taken by his grandson Chris Magee.

John Magee secretly shot 105 minutes of film documenting the atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders in 1937. The footage is considered the only film record of the massacre.

Chris Magee revisited places and took pictures of where his grandfather had lived in Nanjing in 2017. Xinhua