A Nanjing Massacre survivor passed away last Thursday evening, reducing the number of existing massacre survivors to 82. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum held a light-out ceremony Wednesday morning.
As the light went out, the photo of Wan Xiuying started to dim on the memorial wall of the massacre survivors.
Wan died last Thursday. She was 91.
She was only 9 years old when the invading Japanese troops committed mass killing in Nanjing. She lost her elder brother and mother in the massacre.
Wan’s son-in-law
Wan managed to survive the massacre as she was taking refuge in an air raid shelter. She gave birth to five children. She kept telling her children about this unforgettable history before her death.
Liu Tingting, Wan’s granddaughter
Japanese troops captured Nanjing, then China’s capital, on Dec 13 of 1937 and started a campaign of slaughter lasting more than a month. More than 300,000 unarmed Chinese soldiers and civilians were murdered and over 20,000 women were raped.
In China the Nanjing Massacre is seen as the lowest point of an era in which the country was bullied and humiliated by foreign powers. In February 2014, China's top legislature designated December 13 as the national Memorial Day for victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
(Source:ourjiangsu.com)
