Oldest Nanjing Massacre survivor dies at 100

BEIJING: The oldest survivor of the Nanjing Massacre has died and fewer than 100 survivors remain, the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre said.

State leaders will attend a public memorial ceremony at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders today.

Guan Guangjing died on Sunday at age 100, three days before the National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims.

He had been bedridden for six months due to heart disease and died from multiple organ failure, said his 76-year-old son-in-law, who gave only his surname as Liu.

Guan contributed verbal testimony to Irrefutable Evidences: A Memoir of the Lishui Bombing Caused by Japanese Invaders, published by Nanjing Press in November 2016.

The book collected 31 survivors’ oral accounts of the bombing in Nanjing’s Lishui county on Nov 29, 1937, which claimed over 1,200 lives.

He said in the book that he hid under a big rock during the bombing and witnessed his neighbours, including the four generations of a family surnamed Sun, being killed.

Guan stayed alive by hiding wherever he could during the massacre, in which over 300,000 Chinese were killed by Japanese invaders when Nanjing – then China’s capital – was occupied in December 1937.

Officials from the memorial hall said Guan narrated that he witnessed Japanese invaders killing people multiple times.

The National Memorial Day falls on Dec 13, and this year marks the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre. — China Daily/Asia News Network