China holds state commemoration for Nanjing Massacre victims

China holds its 10th national memorial ceremony for the Nanjing Massacre victims at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, Dec. 13, 2023. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

NANJING, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The people of Nanjing observed a moment of silence, and sirens were heard across the city as China held a memorial ceremony on Wednesday to mourn the 300,000 victims of the Nanjing Massacre.

Despite the winter chill, thousands of people, dressed in dark attire and with white flowers pinned to their chests, attended the 10th national memorial ceremony for the victims in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province.

China's national flag was flown at half-mast in front of the crowd, which included massacre survivors, local students and foreign friends.

At 10:01 a.m., sirens began to blare. Drivers in the downtown area stopped their cars and honked, while pedestrians paused for a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims.

Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, attended the memorial ceremony and delivered a speech.

Li said the memorial ceremony expresses the Chinese people's noble desire to steadfastly pursue peaceful development and demonstrates their firm stance to always remember history, cherish peace and forge ahead for a brighter future.

Noting that today's China is a vigorous and thriving nation, Li urged efforts to promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity and to strive toward the great goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts.

More than 80 young people read aloud a declaration of peace, and citizen representatives struck the Bell of Peace. White doves, symbolizing hope for peace, were released to fly over the square of the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

In 2014, China's top legislature designated Dec. 13 as the national memorial day for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre, which took place when Japanese troops captured the city on Dec. 13, 1937. The Japanese invaders brutally killed approximately 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in over six weeks, marking one of the most barbaric episodes of World War II.

As of this year, the number of registered Nanjing Massacre survivors has dwindled to just 38.

The Chinese government has preserved the survivors' testimonies, recorded in written documents and video footage. These records of the massacre were listed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World Register in 2015.

Historical materials have been progressively collected as new evidence of war crimes related to the massacre. More than 1,100 items, including 125 American newspapers such as The New York Times which reported the atrocity, have been donated to the memorial hall this year.

Since its inauguration in 1985, the memorial hall has acquired a collection of about 193,000 items including photographs, artifacts and video footage of the tragedy.

According to Zhou Feng, curator of the memorial hall, they are trying to collect more typical historical materials globally and revive the collections through digital methods to better provide educational services for the public.

A dozen new publications on the Nanjing Massacre were released on Dec. 6, among which, a novel named Ningsheng Ningsheng, written by an English teacher and screenwriter from Nanjing, depicts the different experiences of Ningsheng, two namesake children of the same age, in 1937 and 2017.

"I want to use the story to help more children understand and remember this part of the history, so they can better cherish the present world," said Yang Xiaoyan, author of the novel.

"The Nanjing Massacre is not just a certain history in the books, but a history that belongs to every Chinese. The suffering should not be forgotten," Zhou said.

Liu Minsheng, a survivor of the massacre, was only three years old when he experienced the holocaust. "A Japanese soldier snarled at me with a bayonet in his hand and stabbed me in the leg. I always remember that day," the 89-year-old survivor said.

Dozens of descendants of Nanjing Massacre survivors, who were recognized as China's inheritors of the historical memory, also attended the memorial ceremony on Wednesday.

"When my parents were alive, they always told me to pass on the historical truth to our future generations. And we have the responsibility to spread the history to the world," said Cao Yuli, one of the inheritors.

"At the same time, we hope for peace and happiness all over the world," Cao added.