Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders 侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆

Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. Today I'll guide you along this route: Sculpture Plaza — Ceremony Plaza — Historical Exhibition Hall — "Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses" Relic Site — Cemetery Plaza — Memorial Altar and Hall of Contemplation — Peace Park — Victory Plaza — "Three Certainties" Thematic Exhibition Hall. This is a journey into a chapter of history that must not be forgotten.

Before we enter, I'd like to say a few words. This is not an ordinary tourist site. It is a memorial built on the ground where the victims of the Nanjing Massacre were buried. Every step we take today is on the same earth where 300,000 people fell in the winter of 1937. Inside, please keep your voices low and silence your phones. In the relic site area, please do not take photographs. This will not be a comfortable visit — but it is a necessary one. A meeting with history. A walk alongside the truth.

The sculpture before you now is called Shattered Family. A mother, her clothes torn, holds her dead child to her chest. Her face is turned upward, her mouth open — and yet she makes no sound. Her rigid body and posture of absolute despair speak for all 300,000 victims of the winter of 1937. In silence, they are deafening. The sculptor Wu Weisan cast in bronze one of the darkest moments in human history.

Please walk slowly along the path. The figures you see scattered on both sides are part of the Flight of Refugees ensemble. Each one is rooted in actual historical documentation: a grandfather struggling forward with his dead grandson in his arms; an orphan searching through icy water for his mother; a child wailing beside the body of his mother, who had been stabbed to death. At the base of each figure, a few lines of text — pulled from survivor testimonies and historical archives. Please slow down and read them. These are not cold bronze figures. They were people with names, with lives, with faces.

Further ahead, two more large sculptural groups stand in the plaza: Howling Souls and The Catastrophe of an Ancient City. Together, this Sculpture Plaza is the opening page of a book written in stone — and from this moment, we have entered Nanjing, 1937.

Passing through the sculpture corridor, we arrive at the Ceremony Plaza — the central venue for China's National Memorial Ceremony.

Please look to your right at the Wall of Catastrophe. On its dark gray stone surface, the words "300,000 Victims" are inscribed in Chinese, English, and Japanese. Three hundred thousand — this is not an estimate. It is the figure confirmed by the verdicts of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal after the war. It means that in the six weeks following December 13, 1937, a Chinese life was taken by Japanese forces on average every twelve seconds.

At the center of the plaza stands the landmark stele, shaped like a cross. Its upper section bears the dates of the Nanjing Massacre: 1937.12.13 — 1938.1. In Western tradition, the cross is a symbol of suffering and redemption. Here, it stands as a reminder to every visitor: the loss of 300,000 lives is a wound that human civilization can never fully heal.

To the left of the plaza is the Peace Bell, cast in bronze. Every year on December 13, at ten in the morning, air raid sirens sound across the city of Nanjing. Traffic stops, horns are sounded, pedestrians stand in silent tribute. At this plaza, representatives from all walks of life toll the Peace Bell together — its resonance carrying across the memorial grounds, and into every person who hears it. Since 2014, China has observed December 13 as the National Memorial Day for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre, and this plaza is the permanent site of that ceremony.

Please follow me into the Historical Exhibition Hall — the core exhibition space of the memorial. The permanent collection here is titled "A Catastrophe of Humanity: Historical Facts of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders." It is organized into five sections, drawing on more than three thousand artifacts, photographs, archival documents, and film materials to document systematically what happened in Nanjing.

Section One: The Situation Before Nanjing Fell. This section presents the military campaign planned by Japanese militarists to capture Nanjing in 1937. The Battle of Shanghai broke out on August 13; Shanghai fell in November; Japanese forces advanced on Nanjing — then the capital of China — from three directions. As they moved through the countryside, they massacred civilians, burned villages, looted homes, and committed widespread sexual violence.

Section Two: The Chinese Defenders' Battle of Nanjing. From December 1, when Japanese forces issued their order of attack, to December 13, when the city fell, approximately 100,000 Chinese troops fought to defend Nanjing with equipment and numbers far inferior to those of the enemy. The weapons used in those final days and the personal effects of commanding officers are displayed here. You may notice that many of the soldiers in the photographs look very young. Many of them were not yet twenty years old when they died.

Please continue forward to Section Three: "Nanjing — A Living Hell on Earth." This is the most difficult part of the exhibition. Every photograph on display, every document — they are irrefutable evidence. After occupying Nanjing, Japanese forces carried out organized, large-scale massacres: shootings, bayoneting, decapitation, burial alive, burning. More than 300,000 people were killed. In the first month of occupation alone, more than 20,000 cases of sexual assault were recorded. One third of the city's buildings were burned to the ground. I'll pause here — please take a moment to look at these documents and photographs. They have not been modified or aestheticized in any way. It is precisely that restraint and objectivity that gives them their most powerful force.

This is the Survivor Portrait Wall. When the memorial first opened, more than a thousand survivors had been registered. One by one, as the years have passed, they have left us — each year, the memorial holds a light-extinguishing ceremony for those who have died. Today, fewer than thirty survivors remain alive. Each time one of those lights goes out, a living memory disappears forever. But their testimonies have been fully recorded and play on a continuous loop in this hall. Please listen — the aged voices you hear are not telling a story about history in the abstract. They are describing what happened to a specific person, with a name, a family, a life.

Near the end of the exhibition, please stop at the "12 Seconds" installation. If 300,000 people were killed over the six weeks of the Nanjing Massacre, one life was extinguished every twelve seconds. Here, a drop of water falls. A photograph lights up in the dark, then fades. Another follows. The cycle continues without end. Stand here for one minute, and you will witness five lives disappear. In the twelve seconds between each drop, be still — it may be the longest twelve seconds you have ever felt.

Section Five of the exhibition covers the post-war trials of Japanese war criminals. We'll explore that in greater depth at the "Three Certainties" Exhibition Hall. For now, please follow me to the next stop — the "Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses" relic site.

We are now entering the most solemn part of this memorial — the "Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses" Relic Site. I need to ask once more: please maintain absolute silence. Please do not take photographs.

The ground we are standing on right now is the original site of the Jiangdongmen mass killing. This is the very earth where victims of the Nanjing Massacre were buried in the winter of 1937. When the memorial was established in 1985, this location was chosen precisely so that the physical evidence of history would remain in the ground where history happened.

Please look down through the glass. The intertwined bones you see were excavated here — first in 1985 when the memorial was built, and again after 1998. Forensic scientists, archaeologists, and medical specialists rigorously examined these remains and confirmed they are the bones of victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Look at the postures of the skeletons. Some are frozen mid-struggle. On some skulls, bullet holes are clearly visible. Seven years old. Seventeen. Seventy. There are no labels on these bones. But every one of them was a life cut short by violence, and every one of them has a story.

This is not the only burial site. Between 1937 and 1938, Japanese forces carried out mass killings at multiple locations across Nanjing, burying the victims in mass graves afterward. Jiangdongmen was the largest of these sites. The bones lay in the ground for nearly half a century, until the builders of this memorial excavated them and brought this silent evidence into the light.

Standing before this relic site, words become inadequate. The bones in the ground are themselves the most powerful indictment of what was done here. Please walk quietly around the perimeter, and then follow me forward.

Coming out of the bone vault, we enter the Cemetery Plaza. Notice what you feel beneath your feet — the entire plaza is paved with cobblestones, which crunch softly as you walk. This was a deliberate design choice. The stones evoke a field of bones; each step presses down on history's wounds.

The bare, weathered trees and crumbling walls throughout this space are not ornamental. They are a reconstruction of Nanjing's landscape after it fell in the winter of 1937 — a ruined city. The space is composed entirely in gray, white, and black. No color. This is the emotional register the architect intended: mourning.

Three large relief sculptures stand in the plaza: Catastrophe, Massacre, and Mourning, carved from gray granite. They advance in sequence — the fall of the city, the killing of 300,000 people, and the grief of those left behind.

The seventeen smaller stone monuments along the pathways deserve close attention. Each one marks the site of a specific mass killing in Nanjing: Xiaguan, Caoxie Gorge, Yanziqi, Hanzhong Gate — location after location where people were gathered and killed. Each monument represents a mass grave. Together, they account for the figure of 300,000. This is not a museum display. It is the entire city's bloodstained record, gathered in one place to tell you the full truth.

Over there is the Wall of Names — also called the "Wall of Tears." More than ten thousand names are engraved in the stone — and these are only the victims whose identities could be verified. Families have run their hands over these names again and again; some sections of the stone have been worn smooth and bright. Next to it stands a Stele of Atonement erected in 1987 by Japanese citizens, expressing the remorse of part of the Japanese public for the atrocities of the Nanjing Massacre.

Passing through the Cemetery Plaza, we enter the quietest part of the memorial — the Memorial Altar and Hall of Contemplation.

The Memorial Altar is a place for acts of tribute. Every day, visitors from across China and around the world come here to lay a white chrysanthemum and bow in respect for the 300,000 victims. There is no particular religious ceremony here, no distinction by nationality or belief — only a shared identity. As human beings, mourning a human tragedy.

The Hall of Contemplation is a semi-enclosed space of light and shadow. The domed ceiling is scattered with small points of light, like candleflames, representing the 300,000 lives that have passed — now as stars above. The water surrounding the space is perfectly still, and the only sound is the soft echo of footsteps. The architects hoped that everyone who entered would pause here for a moment. Not to find answers — some catastrophes in history have none — but to stand in silence and hear their own inner voice. Remembering suffering is not about sustaining hatred. It is about drawing from history the wisdom to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again.

Stepping out of the Hall of Contemplation, the space suddenly opens before you — this is the Peace Park.

You'll likely notice it right away: the light here is abundant, the space wide, the palette alive with color. This shift is intentional. The architects designed the experience as a gradual passage — from the dark exhibition halls, through the somber relic site and the muted tones of the Cemetery Plaza, and finally into this open green. It is a movement from the depths of history toward the horizon of peace.

At the center of the park stands a white marble sculpture called Peace — also known as the Goddess of Peace. A mother raises a dove in one hand and cradles a child in the other, her posture open and serene. Look back toward the entrance for a moment. From the Shattered Family sculpture at the beginning to this one here, we have made a complete journey: from death to peace, from despair to hope. Two mothers. One has lost her child; one holds her child close. The same gesture, opposite meanings — and between them, the entire message of this memorial.

The Zijin Grass Garden beside you holds a true story. In 1939, a Japanese military doctor named Yamaguchi Seitaro, who had served in the invasion, was deeply shaken by what he witnessed in Nanjing. Before returning to Japan, he gathered seeds of the February orchid from the slopes of Zijinshan — giving them the name "Zijin Grass" for their purple flowers. For decades afterward, he and his family traveled across Japan scattering these seeds, hoping that this flower from Nanjing might carry a message of repentance and a prayer for peace. Zijin Grass now blooms across Japan, and has become a shared symbol of peace between the Chinese and Japanese peoples. In 2007, through the joint efforts of Yamaguchi Seitaro's hometown and Nanjing, this garden was created here within the memorial.

Nearby stands a bronze figure of a young girl holding Zijin Grass in her hands. Every spring, the flowers bloom in great sweeps of purple across the garden. They open quietly. They say everything without saying a word.

Following the path through Peace Park, we reach the centerpiece of the memorial's third-phase expansion — the Wall of Victory and Victory Plaza.

The sweeping rust-red arc before you is the Wall of Victory. It is made of steel, treated with a special oxidation process that gives it this deep iron-red color — red for the eight years of war and the blood they cost; the weathered texture for the weight of history. At the top of the wall, a "7"-shaped form rises against the sky. The "7" references July 7, 1937 — the Marco Polo Bridge Incident — the moment when China's full-scale war of resistance began. But stand back and take in the whole picture. The wall, the arc, and the "7" together trace the outline of a phoenix spreading its wings — in Chinese culture, the phoenix rises from fire and is reborn. It is the image of a nation that endured war and flame and emerged standing.

The path rising behind the wall is called the Victory Road. It climbs gradually to the torch platform at its summit — sixteen meters high, with the date of victory carved into its base: September 9, 1945. On normal days, two beams of light shoot upward from the platform into the night sky. During major commemorative events, "the Flame of Victory" is lit and burns day and night.

The large elliptical plaza below the torch platform is Victory Plaza, also called "9-9 Plaza." The name marks September 9, 1945 — the day the surrender ceremony for the Chinese Theater of War was held in Nanjing, when General Okamura Yasuji, commander-in-chief of Japanese forces in China, signed the instrument of surrender. It was the conclusion of a war that had begun in 1931 and lasted fourteen years. Viewed from above, two curved paths through the plaza trace the shape of two nines, side by side — a quiet piece of design that inscribes a date into the ground itself.

Our visit to the memorial is now complete. We have walked the full route together: Sculpture Plaza — Ceremony Plaza — Historical Exhibition Hall — "Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses" Relic Site — Cemetery Plaza — Memorial Altar and Hall of Contemplation — Peace Park — Victory Plaza — "Three Certainties" Thematic Exhibition Hall.

Before we part, I'd like to leave you with three things to carry with you.

First: "300,000" is not a number — it is 300,000 broken hearts. Three hundred thousand people who never had the chance to say goodbye. Just as this memorial stands on the ground where victims were buried, the truth of history cannot be buried by time.

Second: Remembering is not the same as holding onto hatred. The full name of this place is the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. The most important word in that name is "victims" — this place does not commemorate an abstract historical event. It commemorates people who were part of our human family. We remember their suffering so that such a tragedy is never repeated.

Third: As you walk out of this door, you become a messenger for peace. At the exit, an eternal flame burns quietly beside words carved in stone: "We may forgive, but we must never forget." Forgiveness is a choice. Forgetting is a betrayal. Please take what you have seen, heard, and felt today and share it with others — because history only stops repeating itself in the places where it is remembered.

Thank you.