At the entrance to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, a 93-year-old man in sorrow looks at a statue which features a mother making the last attempt to feed her baby, although she was stabbed in the chest and stained with blood, and meanwhile another elderly child beside her is crying desperately.
This scene comes from the sixth episode of the mini-documentary “Care for Survivors of the Nanjing Massacre,” produced by the memorial hall this year. The statue depicted the last moment that Chang Zhiqiang shared with dying mother and brother.
In the 1980s, China started to register survivors of the massacre and found over 1,000 people at that time. The number dropped to 100 in 2017. This year, a total of 11 survivors of the massacre passed away and now only 61 survivors remain, 91 years old on average.
Cheng Wenying, a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre, plays the harmonica. (Photo provided by the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders)
Chang is now still keen on local opera, drawing and paper-cutting, which give him peace of mind. When the weather is good, Xia Shuqin usually leaves her apartment and works out close to the building. Cheng Fubao likes to read news on the internet and social media apps. After retirement, Cheng Wenying has a new interest in playing the harmonica for the elderly. At advanced ages, some survivors have visited Japan and other countries for interviews and exchanges. They also tell the history in domestic schools.
At 87, Xia visited the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in October 2016 and shared her haunting memories for a documentary film. It was her second visit to the United States to give the testimony after the first one in San Francisco in 2001.
Over the years, Nanjing has improved efforts to care for the survivors. Two large-scale surveys in Nanjing in 1984 and 1997 collected 4,128 testimonies of the massacre.
The memorial hall established a non-profit organization, the Nanjing Association for the Assistance to Victims in 2004. The organization has used the fund to subsidize the medical expenses and livelihood of the survivors.
It also began to establish a database of historical materials related to the massacre in May 2006 and has created an archive for each survivor.
Nanjing started providing survivors with living allowances and the annual relief payment during the Spring Festival, Chinese Lunar New Year. Other assistance includes age-appropriate retrofitting, such as installing handrails, gas alarms and emergency call systems in the house.
In 2014, China's top legislature designated December 13 as the national memorial day for the victims. Then on December 13, 2018, Nanjing’s new policy to support the survivors took effect, and it has encouraged society-wide efforts to make life easier for the survivors.
In 2015, documents of Nanjing Massacre were inscribed on the UNESCO International Memory of the World Register. These valuable documents will play a positive role in remembering history and cherishing peace.
