New materials reinforce Nanjing war truth

The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, unveiled 13 new sets of cultural relics and historical materials on Friday, providing irrefutable evidence for restoring historical truth.

The collection includes letters from Japanese soldiers, post-occupation photos of Nanjing, archives of a Chinese military doctor killed in the Nanjing defense war, a Japanese army album, and English-French war-related publications.

This year marks the 88th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre. Experts highlighted these materials as conclusive proof for restoring historical truth and remembering national trauma. They serve as a powerful counter to Japanese right-wing forces' claims and a testament to global commitment to safeguarding historical memory and justice.

Two letters from Japanese soldiers reveal the massacre from the perpetrators' perspective. One letter, donated by a Japanese individual, is a four-page document dated Jan 8, 1938, from a soldier to his father. It details the unit's killing of Chinese prisoners: "Nanjing has a very interesting execution pier. Every day, we behead or shoot Chinese defeated and wounded soldiers with Japanese swords, then throw all bodies into the Yangtze River to be washed away. It's so satisfying."

The address in the letter matches the recipient's details in a Japanese history book published in Japan in 1978, containing the list of the war dead.

"This letter is ironclad evidence of the Japanese army's massacres and corpse disposal during the Nanjing Massacre, as recorded by a perpetrator," said Wang Weixing, a researcher at the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences' institute of history.

"The soldier even used inhumane terms like 'very interesting' and 'so satisfying'. The Japanese military clearly regarded killing as a casual and enjoyable act during the Nanjing Massacre," he added.

Eight historical photos, donated by Henan father-son duo Dang Xiaoju and Dang Biao, authentically depict scenes before and after Nanjing's occupation, some with shooting times and text descriptions. They include images of landmark buildings damaged by Japanese artillery on Dec 14 and 15, 1937, the Japanese army's "entry ceremony" on Dec 17, and an engineering team's blasting operations on Dec 12.

The memorial hall's collection also includes the Nov 22, 1938, issue of the United States magazine LOOK, featuring a report on pages 54 and 55 titled "Killing for Fun" with four photos exposing Japanese atrocities.

Chinese-American Lu Zhaoning donated English and French publications, providing third-party evidence of Japanese crimes. Among them, the Dec 8, 1937, issue of the French newspaper L'Excellence discusses Nanjing's population on the eve of its fall, noting over 1 million residents remained.

Zhang Sheng, a history professor at Nanjing University, said, "Japanese right-wing forces have long denied the Nanjing Massacre on the grounds of Nanjing's population, claiming that the population of Nanjing was less than 300,000 at that time, so it was impossible to kill 300,000 people. This newspaper is a powerful counterattack against their wrong remarks."

The Dec 18, 1937, issue of the News & Observer further confirms global awareness of the tragedy by reprinting an Associated Press news report on large-scale massacres in Nanjing following the Japanese occupation.

The materials also include a 44-photo album donated by a high school student in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province. It documents a Japanese army unit converting occupied schools in North China's Tianjin city into field hospitals, highlighting the plunder of China's educational resources.