Briefly, Nanjing – The Living Spirits of Nanjing

Having learned that the museums of Nanjing are closed on Mondays, I was determined to visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Jiangdongmen on Sunday, my second-last full day in Nanjing.  For it was one of the main reasons why I visited Nanjing in the first place.

At 7:30 I was up and by 8:30 I was in line at the museum.  There was a long queue.  Some prepared flowers to present to the victims at the memorial.  In contrast with other tourist areas, the crowd was very quiet at the Memorial Hall, and solemnity was apparent.  Perhaps the people there, most of whom likely to be Chinese tourists from other provinces, felt a need to prepare our emotions for what the museum was about to show.  I took deep breaths as the line proceeded smoothly into the museum.

There were some expectations.  I wanted to see exhibits that were educational, fair and communicative.

By 8:45 I was inside the museum.

Entering the museum, I met the living spirits of Nanjing.  The first recognition went to the survivors of the Nanjing atrocities.  Book-like titles displayed their names, lining up individually across a vast wall.  Then came the portraits of those who survived and lived to old age.  The message was clear: we celebrate the survivors.

The narrative then proceeded to the historical.  Informative exhibits introduced the visitors to the beginning of Japan’s invasion of Nanjing.  Displays showed the routes that the Japanese Imperial Army took to take down Nanjing, leading up to the Fall of Nanjing on December 13, 1937.  These displays were very powerful emotionally.  At the eve of the invasion, Nanjing stood helpless as a prey.

A memorial plaque displaying the names of the fallen martyrs of Nanjing reminded visitors of the enormous human costs of war.  By then, the visitors knew that displays of heartbreaking atrocities would follow.  The witnesses’ powerful testaments showed that survival was really a matter of chance in face of senseless killings.  Hatred, racist ideology, the desire for revenge and sadistic pleasure motivated these atrocities.

As the narrative proceeded, and having seen graphic pictures of murders, mass executions, vandalism, arson, robbery and rape, I came to one question.

Was there hope?

Then came a very good section on the angels that guarded Nanjing throughout the Japanese occupation.  Testimonies of the foreigners and foreign missionaries that maintained the Safety Zone and the refugee camps showed their commitment to human dignity.  Their solidarity with the Chinese people and amongst themselves served as the only source of hope for the refugees.

To name a few, there were Minnie Vautrin, John Magee, George Fitch, Lewis Smythe, Robert Wilson, Clifford Trimmer, E. Sperling, John Rabe, and many others.  Some were pastors, some were missionaries, some were teachers, some led the Red Cross, and many were heads of the China divisions of large foreign enterprises.  By drawing on their own connections in China and abroad, these foreigners were able to save lives.  More importantly, they preserved the truth of the atrocities by their own witness accounts and daring attempts to document the atrocities on film.  The systematic documentation of the atrocities could have cost them their own lives.

If there was just a slimmer of hope in Nanjing at the time, these foreigners were the ones that kept the light from extinguishing.

Finally, I encourage visitors to see the pit of the ten thousand corpses.  Mass graves were discovered in the Jiangdongmen area of Nanjing during the 1980s.  This discovery resulted in Jiangdongmen being chosen as the site of this Memorial Hall.

Simplified Chinese, English and Japanese captions were available on every exhibit.  I thought the museum has well-exceeded my expectation.  The spirit of truth, justice, survival, solidarity and dialogue came through.  Overall, I did not feel the dogged, argumentative patriotism that so commonly feature in China’s diplomatic discourse, perhaps with the exception of the concluding remarks.

Three hours later, I stepped out of the darkness in the museum into the bright, hot day outside. I said to myself, “the sun will always shine in Nanjing.”