"In my lifetime, I will never forget the pain brought by the Japanese militarists," said 92-year-old wheelchair-bound Wu Xiulan on the 68th anniversary of the Japanese occupation and Nanjing Massacre.
She was recalling the sorrowful wartime at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
Sixty-eight years have passed, but Nanjing, an eastern Chinese city not far from Shanghai, still remembers.
Japanese troops occupied Nanjing on December 13, 1937, and launched a six-week massacre. Historical records show that more than 300,000 Chinese people, not only disarmed soldiers but also civilians, were slain in the butchery.
Wu's two children were killed by Japanese bombs and she lost a leg.
"Every year on December 13, I get up very early and go to the memorial to mourn my relatives killed by Japanese troops and all other victims," she said.
Yesterday, 3,000 people of all walks of life in Nanjing, peace-loving persons from home and abroad, including many from Japan, held a peace rally in Nanjing to mark the 68th anniversary of the tragedy.
Dozens of survivors, like Wu, attended the rally. As the national anthem was played, they stood in silent tribute to express deep sorrow for the war victims.
"The Nanjing Massacre is the darkest page in the human history of civilization," Ren Yanshen, deputy secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, told the gathering.
He said that the peace rally is meant to review the history, expose the irresponsible attitude toward history taken by a small portion of Japanese right-wingers, and tell the younger generation to work for world peace.
"We wish all peace-loving people in the world can join hands in creating a peaceful, progressive and beautiful tomorrow," said Sun Shuangjin, headmaster of a primary school in Nanjing. He was reading the Nanjing Peace Declaration at the rally.
Also yesterday, thousands of monks and Buddhist disciples from China and Japan gathered in Nanjing for a weeklong religious peace ceremony.
China Central Television on Monday began airing a six-part documentary on the massacre.
Nanjing has launched an English-language Website, english.nj1937.org, to advocate world peace and remind the world of Japanese wartime atrocities. It carries the latest research, 300 pictures and video.
(Xinhua)