The people of Nanjing observed a minute of silence, and sirens were heard across the city, as China proceeded with its ninth national memorial ceremony Tuesday to mourn the 300,000 victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
Despite the winter chill, thousands of people attended the ceremony in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, with white flowers pinned to their chests conveying condolences. In front of the crowd, China's national flag flew at half-mast.
At 10:01 am, sirens began to blare and the city came to a halt. Drivers in the downtown area stopped their cars and sounded their horns, while pedestrians paused for a minute of silence in remembrance of the victims.
Teenagers read out a declaration calling for 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.
The commemoration proclaimed the Chinese people's firm stance on learning from history to create a bright future and their noble aspiration for adhering to the path of peaceful development, said Cai Qi when addressing the ceremony. Cai is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.
He said on the way forward, we must unswervingly adhere to the leadership of the CPC, unswervingly promote Chinese path to modernization, unswervingly carry forward the spirit of struggle, and unswervingly promote the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Cai Qi remarked that in the new era and new journey, the whole Party, the whole army and the people of all ethnic groups should more closely unite around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, take history as a mirror, create the future, work hard and forge ahead bravely, and work together to build a socialist modern country in an all-round way and promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in an all-round way.
The Nanjing Massacre took place when Japanese troops captured the city on Dec 13, 1937. Over six weeks, they killed more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in one of the most barbaric episodes of World War II.
In 2014, China's top legislature designated Dec 13 as the national memorial day for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
Seven survivors of the massacre passed away this year, reducing the total number of registered survivors to 54. The remaining survivors have an average age of more than 92.
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.
An exhibition featuring an overseas collection of historical artifacts concerning the massacre, including a camera that captured the atrocities and audio files of Japanese invading soldiers, opened on Tuesday at the memorial hall.
With 453 historical items such as photos and soldiers' logs newly added this year, the museum has so far accumulated more than 192,000 items evidencing this extremely brutal event.
Thirteen descendants of Nanjing Massacre survivors, who were recognized as China's first batch of inheritors of memory of the Nanjing Massacre, attended the memorial ceremony on Tuesday.
