NANJING -- Sixty-two years after Japan's surrender in the Second World War on Wednesday, Chinese and Japanese marked the event together with calls for world peace.
In Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province where the notorious Nanjing Massacre occurred, a 48-strong delegation of the Japanese left-wing group Mei Shin Kai commemorated the day.
A Japanese woman prays in front of a monument for war victims during a gathering in memory of the end of the World War II, in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province August 15, 2007. [newsphoto] |
Tamaki started visiting veterans of the war in 1998 in the hope of discovering the truth about Japan's controversial history. Based on the accounts of six veterans, she identified a site in Nanjing, where more than 1,000 Chinese were killed during the massacre.
According to her findings, the victims were led to Taipingmen in east Nanjing on Dec, 13 1937, and bayoneted, shot or forced to step on land mines.
To make sure everyone was dead, the Japanese soldiers made a thorough search the next day and bayoneted those who still breathing, Tamaki said.
This is a new finding, said Zhu Chengshan, curator of the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, noting that more than 20 sites, most by the Yangtze River, have been recognized as massacre sites.
Zhu said he would erect a memorial monument at the Taipingmen site.
Invading Japanese troops occupied Nanjing on December 13, 1937, and launched a six-week massacre. Chinese records show more than 300,000 people, not only disarmed soldiers but also civilians, were killed.
Japanese college student Hitomi Fukugawa, 21, visiting China for the first time, said she was astonished at survivors' stories. In Japan I learnt little about the invasion, but now I feel I have more to learn, she said.
In northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Wednesday was the first Peace Day in Qiqihar, site of the first battle against Japanese troops after they launched their invasion on September 18, 1931.
Performances were held to mark the day the war ended, and more than 3,000 pupils drew symbols of peace on an 815-meter-long banner.
We should remember the tribulations of war on this day and cherish peace, said businessman Wang Xinghai, 35, at the memorial wall on the Peace Square.
In Shenyang, capital of Liaoning, elderly people gathered to recall the war.
I saw a Japanese soldier kill a six-year-old kid with his bayonet and slay a newly-wed couple, said 87-year-old Sun Shizhen in sorrow.
Veteran Shan Lizhi, 96, said, All our sacrifices were made for peace and prosperity.
Remembering history doesn't mean harboring hatred, said Wang Jianxue, head of the Warfare Research Institute of 9.18. Our country was weak at that time, and we should tell our young people to work hard for China's rejuvenation.
In Beijing, a set of surgical tools and the wooden trunk used by Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune were donated to the Chinese Museum of Anti-Japanese War on Wednesday.
Bethune came to China in 1938 and set up a front-line mobile hospital where he operated on wounded soldiers. He is credited with saving thousands of lives.
In Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, more than 200 people laid flowers at the monument for dead Sichuan soldiers, a bronze statue of a soldier in a bamboo hat, carrying a grenade and holding a gun facing east.
During the eight-year war, about three million Sichuan soldiers fought and more than 600,000 died.
Holding a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, a man in his 70s who declined to be named said, We should never forget those who died for the liberation of our country and value peace for them.