About 350 veterans, patriots and their families on Monday visited an exhibition marking the 60th anniversary of the Anti-Fascist War victory and China's victorious War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
The exhibition hall is located at Lugou Bridge on the outskirts of Beijing, also known as the Marco Polo Bridge, where Japan launched its full-swing invasion into China on July 7 in 1937.
Most visitors were grey-haired and some could only move around in wheelchairs. They carefully studied the 600-plus pictures and 800-plus pieces of relics, including machine guns and cannons.
"Tears almost ran off when I saw the photos so familiar to me. I've seen Japanese soldiers killing and I also killed Japanese soldiers myself. My parents were bombarded to death by the Japanese in 1944," said Edmund Lung, or Lung Qiming, an 83-year-old Flying Tiger living in Chongqing.
He got his English name Edmund from the vengeful hero in the western classic, the Count of Monte Cristo.
Zhang Baochen, aged 100, is the eldest in the delegation. He served as a division commander in defending Nanjing and Shanghai.
"During the eight years of war against the Japanese invaders, I had been fighting the Japanese at the front line. We have deeper feelings about the war than those who haven't been on the battlefields," said Zhang. "The pictures on the Nanjing Massacre make me feel like it happened yesterday."
Many patriots donated relics or relics replicas from World War II to the exhibition.
Bok Pan, director of the Chinese-American branch of the American Veterans Association, donated a replica of the Japanese surrender document signed in 1945.
Many people know the Japanese Fascists surrendered in 1945, but they could not tell the content of the surrender document, and it's the document that brought peace to the world, Pan said.
"The war leaves the civilians suffering the most. I watched numerous soldiers die, families bereaved and even the innocent children killed for no reason. We should remember the history and never let it happen again," Lung said.
The exhibition hall at the historical bridge is about 20 kilometers away from downtown Beijing. About 700,000 people have visited the exhibition, according to organizers.
(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2005)
