NANJING, China – We do not want anyone to confuse us. Perhaps this experience should not be here. But we have decided to include it, not because of the hellish slaughter that lies behind its raison d’être, but because in some parts of the world, including Europe, it is completely unknown. It is not talked about. This sad and macabre story is not told. That is why, out of respect for the Chinese people, we have decided to take you there. To make it known.
Just looking at the sculpture that stands at the entrance to the museum makes your skin crawl. This place is the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, a space dedicated to honouring the thousands of victims who suffered atrocious deaths at the hands of the Japanese army in December 1937. At that time, Chinese soldiers, pursued by Japanese forces, mingled with the civilian population of Nanjing, resulting in a brutal massacre that spared neither soldiers, old men, women nor children. Crossing the threshold of the museum, a sombre melody welcomes the many visitors, who are immediately confronted by a huge concrete cross that pays homage to the dead. Most disturbing is the interior of the building, where each room relives the horrific moments that took place during that time.
‘From 13 December, people were bayoneted, cut with swords or burned. However, nothing was as cruel as burying them alive. Those miserable howls, those desperate cries echoed in the air. We could still hear them seven miles away’ (Three Months of Nanking’s Ordeal, author Jiang Gong-gu). The depths of the museum are sombre and narrate, through images, videos and re-enactments, how the barbarity occurred. Each depiction of the murders is accompanied by similar sounds, creating a chilling atmosphere.
Fragments of the barricades where the Chinese army was annihilated can be seen, as well as dwellings from the period in which the Japanese carried out their most bloody acts against women, children and the elderly. It all seems so real that the museum surprises with its interactivity and its depiction of the killings. ‘Victims buried alive (buried with only their heads outside) died long before the effects of starvation and decomposition set in, yet some were used as ‘javelin-like’ targets with bayonets, others were crushed by horses, some were sprayed with boiling water, and others were run over by tanks. Bergamini, David. Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy (William Morrow Company, Inc. New York, 1971, p. 36).
Inside the museum are documents, photographs and artefacts that serve as evidence of what happened in 1937. A room, almost in semi-darkness, projects the images of each of the deceased, while on two of its wide walls you can read the names of these unfortunates. In addition to the sound of the wind, the ringing of a bell transforms the atmosphere into what most resembles a graveyard at midnight. ‘A navy veteran, Sho Mitani, mentioned that ‘The army used a trumpet blast that meant “kill all the fleeing Chinese”. Thousands were led away and executed en masse in a pit known as the ‘Ten Thousand Corpses’, a trench approximately three hundred metres long and five metres wide. This dark chapter in Nanjing’s history lives on, and its terrifying memory remains fresh to this day. Every year, thousands of people visit this museum commemorating what happened.
You can see fragments of walls that were virtually destroyed by the Japanese attack, as well as unearthed trenches that show where Chinese soldiers were mercilessly executed. Another disturbing room is an excavation where remains of human bones were found in later years, piled one on top of the other, corroborating accounts of how mutilated corpses were piled up by the hundreds. One witness, Li Ke-Hen, reported: ‘There are many bodies in the streets, victims of gang rape and murder. They are all naked, their severed breasts show a terrible brown hole, some bodies are bayoneted in the abdomen, with their intestines exposed, and some have a roll of paper or a piece of wood stuck in their vaginas’. Visiting the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall transforms one’s perception of the past and broadens one’s understanding of Nanjing’s history. It is important to note that the Chinese have a meticulous way of telling their stories, leaving nothing to chance, explaining everything clearly and using a modern and spectacular infrastructure to showcase their darkest memory.
FOR THE CONTENT OF THIS MEMORIAL, INCLUDING DETAILS OF DEATH, TORTURE, EXPLICIT EXPLANATIONS AND HUMAN REMAINS, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU ARE OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE.