Testimonies to the truth: Victims of the Nanjing Massacre share their heartbreaking stories with the world (5)

Testimony of Wu Changde

-"I went to the Tokyo Tribunal to give evidence of the atrocities committed by Japanese troops"

Testimony of Wu Changde, a victim of the Nanjing Massacre. (Photo by The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders)

In December 1937, when the Japanese army approached Nanjing, my parents, wife, and eldest son were all evacuated to northern Jiangsu, leaving me alone to look after the house in Nanjing. At that time, I was a traffic policeman in Nanjing. After the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, they killed everyone they encountered. Nanjing, with a population of 1 million at that time, almost became an empty city. I hid in the refugee shelter in the former judiciary that was under the "protection" of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone.

At around 8 a.m. on Dec. 15, a dozen Japanese soldiers came suddenly. They drove all young men outside on the road, a total of 2,000 or more. At about 11 a.m., under the escort of Japanese troops, we all lined up to set off. When we walked to the front of the Capital Cinema (now the Victory Cinema), several trucks drove from behind the team, loaded with Japanese soldiers and machine guns. These trucks drove ahead of our team and we continued to march on from the cinema. At 1 p.m., our group reached Hanzhong Gate. The Japanese soldiers stopped us inside the gate and ordered us to sit down. Then two soldiers took hold of a long rope, one at each end, and used it to tie together more than 100 people from the crowd. They were surrounded by a large number of Japanese soldiers and taken out of the Hanzhong Gate, where they were shot dead with machine guns. In this way, I saw groups one to two hundred people bound by ropes, taken outside Hanzhong Gate, and shot dead. Some people were too scared to move so they were killed on the spot. At around 5 p.m., I was also bound in a group, and the Japanese soldiers took us to the bank of the moat, driving us to the slope of the bank. I saw two machine guns on both sides of the river bank, and then observed dead bodies were lying in a state of disarray. I was so sacred, and I couldn't help but ran forward a few steps before throwing myself on the bodies.

Just as I fell, the machine guns roared, and people fell down one after another. I was buried under the bodies of others. After the machine gun stopped firing, rifle gunshots could be heard. When the rifles stopped, I felt like someone was walking on the pile of bodies. Because I was holding my head in the direction of the river bank, face down, I felt the pressure of someone walking through the bodies on my back. At this time, all of a sudden, a bayonet stabbed me in the back and it hurt so bad. It turned out that the Japanese soldiers were bayoneting the dying people on top of me, and the blade pierced through their bodies and into my back. After that, I heard two consecutive machine guns which indicated that they slaughtered another two groups of people. Then the Japanese troops set the bodies on fire. Unable to endure the thick smoke, I risked my life under the protection of darkness and leapt into the Qinhuai River.

Fortunately, there was not much water in the river. I crawled south along the river and reached Shuiximen, then managed to hide in the kitchen of a house in the vicinity of No. 9 Wachang Street. I disguised myself as a beggar using straws to cover my face with ashes. I made great efforts to escape back to the safety zone. Later, I was taken to Drum Tower Hospital for treatment, where I remained for more than 50 days. The wound healed to some extent, but I still carry a five‑inch scar on my back.

In May 1946, when the Japanese Class A war criminal suspect Iwane Matsui (松井石根), the culprit of the Nanjing Massacre, was on trial in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo, I was one of the survivors who testified in court, providing evidence of the atrocities committed by the Japanese troops in Nanjing.