Japan Press Weekly

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2012 December 12 - 18 [HISTORY]

Nanjing Massacre survivor gives talk to Japanese audience

About 80 Tokyo citizens on December 16 invited a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre to give a first-hand account of the massacre that Japanese soldiers committed 75 years ago.

When Xia Shuqin, 84, was eight years old, seven of her family members were killed in front of her eyes and she herself was stabbed in her shoulder and back.

She said that she had stayed hidden indoors for about ten days with the dead bodies of her family members because she was so scared of the Japanese that she could not go outside.

“I pray that war will never erupt again, and that the Japanese and Chinese peoples will work together to keep the peace into the future,” said the survivor.

The audience also watched a documentary film on testimonies given by Nanjing Massacre victims and former Japanese soldiers.

The film consists of vivid testimonies such as “The Yangtze River stopped flowing due to huge number of dead bodies,” and “Because many Nanjing women had their feet bound, they were easily caught.”

Ex-Japanese soldiers also testified in the film saying, “That wasn’t something that humans would do in normal circumstances,” and “There is certainly no question that the mass killings took place.”