Nanjing massacre victims remembered

BEIJING: The victims of the Nanjing Massacre that shook the world in its brutality when Japan invaded China are being remembered through events and are calling to cherish hard-won peace and acknowledge history with honesty.

An annual memorial for the nearly 300000 people killed was held yesterday in Nanjing, the city in eastern China that suffered one of the bloodiest times the world has ever witnessed.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and senior officials joined representatives from all walks of life at the state ceremony marking the 80th anniversary to pay a silent tribute.

In Japan, about 200 people attended a testimony meeting in Shizuoka city on Tuesday. Lu Ling, daughter of a massacre survivor who was stabbed 37 times by Japanese soldiers, shared her mother’s ordeal.

“The massacre imposed tremendous suffering on my family, the people in Nanjing, and the Chinese people,” she said.

Masataka Mori, a former professor of irenology – the study of peace – at Shizuoka University, said people were revising history to distort the truth about the Nanjing carnage.

“It is hoped that more people could know and pass on the truth,” Mori said.

The massacre was also mourned in The Hague, Netherlands, on Tuesday. Around 200 Chinese people and students living there attended the memorial, held one day ahead of China’s “National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims”.

“We hold a memorial ceremony in The Netherlands not only to mourn the victims, but also to tell the truth. No attempt to deny history will ever be accepted,” said Zhong Linchang, head of the Association of Cantonese Business in The Netherlands.

Japan invaded north-east China in September 1931, followed by a full-scale invasion of China on July 7, 1937. On December 13, 1937, Nanjing fell to the invaders who slaughtered civilians and soldiers who had put down their arms.

In February 2014, China designated December 13 as a national memorial day for the victims of the massacre.