China held its third state memorial ceremony on Tuesday to mourn the victims of the 1937 massacre committed by Japanese aggressors in Nanjing, which a senior official stressed is a call for peace instead of continuing hatred.
"The memorial ceremony is to preserve the memory and defend the truth that cannot be denied. The Nanjing Massacre has solid evidence which should not be erased or disavowed," Zhao Leji, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said in his speech.
Zhao stressed that holding the ceremony is a call for peace instead of continuing hatred, and China is willing to maintain justice and peace with the international community.
Japanese troops captured Nanjing, then China's capital, on December 13, 1937 and began a carnage lasting more than a month. More than 300,000 unarmed Chinese soldiers and civilians were murdered and over 20,000 women were raped, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
In February 2014, China's top legislature designated December 13 as National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims.
Never forgotten
After sirens were sounded, traffic in Nanjing stopped for a minute of silence, while passengers and workers also stood in silence. The Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders has organized activities to mourn the victims.
Yin Hao, 47, a local car rental agent, told the Global Times that "a silent tribute on Memorial Day seems to have become a tradition for Nanjing residents. When I came to the office, our colleagues barely talked to each other and when the sirens sounded, almost everyone stopped working and remained silence."
Another man surnamed Zhang in his 60s said that Nanjing residents won't forget history, and the Memorial Day is meant to remind Japan of its wartime atrocities.
On Tuesday, Chinese netizens paid tribute to the victims by reposting pictures or comics that commemorate the victims on social media platforms. On Sina Weibo, a topic with the hashtag "Memorial Day" was viewed 2.5 billion times and received 1.2 million comments.
A 21-year-old Nanjing resident surnamed Zhuang said that "when I was a child, I would cry when I heard the story of the massacre. It is a part of history that I can never forget and forgive."
When a Global Times reporter tried to take photos of the monument at Hohai University, a female student prevented the reporter from using the Japanese-made camera and claimed that Japanese cars will be not allowed to enter the school on Memorial Day.
Local authorities and multinational institutes released new information and historical evidence confirming Japan's atrocities.
On Saturday, 110 more names were inscribed on a memorial wall, bringing the total number of names on the wall to 10,615.
A new book called Human Memory: the Solid Evidence of the Nanjing Massacre, which consists of around 200 documents and images from China, Japan and other countries on the Nanjing massacre, was launched on Monday.
