A bronze road of footprints from 222 witnesses to the 1937 Nanjing
Massacre during which more than 300,000 Chinese were slaughtered by
invading Japanese troops, was added to the Nanjing Memorial on
Thursday to mark the 65th anniversary of the tragedy.
The road, 40 meters long and 1.6 meters wide, is made of bronze
blocks cast with the footprints and the handwritten names and
agesof those survivors.
The number 300,000 is inscribed in black at the end of the road at
the memorial's plaza in the capital city of Jiangsu Province, east
China.
Two bronze sculptures of survivors Peng Yuzhen and Ni Cuiping stand
on either side of the road.
Ni, four of whose family were killed by Japanese troops, was
invited to speak at the launching ceremony. Showing a scar on her
left shoulder to the audience she said, "I hate the brutality of
Japanese soldiers. Now I hate more those Japanese who deny
history."
Wu
Xiulan, 89, was accompanied by her family to the ceremony. She left
only one footprint on the road because she lost her left foot
during the massacre.
Zhou Wenbin, 65, shared his memory of one of his toes being cut off
during the massacre when he was a baby in a cradle.
The memorial designers went to Beijing, Shanghai, and Anhui and
Jiangsu provinces to collect the footprints and signatures of the
222 witnesses.
More than 300,000 unarmed Chinese civilians and soldiers were
slaughtered 65 years ago by the Japanese troops, an event
right-wing Japanese have repeatedly tried to erase from
history.
(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2002)