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Nanjing Massacre exhibition opens in Minsk
MINSK, 6 June (BelTA) – A Chinese documentary exhibition dedicated to the tragic events of 1937 in Nanjing opened in Minsk on 5 June, BelTA has learned.
The exhibition “Shared Memory: Nanjing Massacre of 1937” in the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War features one hundred photos, nine stories, four material evidence and one story footage.
The tragic events began on 7 July 1937 with Japan’s invasion and occupation of China, said the guests from China’s Jiangsu Province and Nanjing city. The Japanese Imperial Army entered the city on 13 December. The invasion unleashed six weeks of terror. Japanese soldiers perpetrated mass atrocities against war prisoners and civilians alike. After World War II the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal conducted an investigation into the Nanjing massacre. According to the verdict of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal, more than 300,000 people fell victims of the Nanjing massacre.
The exhibition shows photos and videos, written evidence of that time. American and European professors, missionaries, doctors, journalists, diplomats and businessmen, who were in Nanjing at that time, left behind diaries, letters, documents, pictures, and film reels. American missionary John G. Magee Sr. , who owned a 16mm movie camera, risked his safety to capture footage of the horror happening around him. He smuggled the footage out of China the following year. It provided among the first visual evidence of the Nanjing Massacre. The original film reels are kept in the Victims of Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall built in 1985 near a site where thousands of bodies were buried.
The Victims of Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall and the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War signed a cooperation agreement in Minsk.
The organizers of the exhibition were the China Foundation for Human Rights Development and the associations of international humanitarian exchanges of Jiangsu Province and Nanjing city, China Embassy in Belarus, Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders and the Culture Ministry of Belarus. The exhibition presents materials in English and Russian.
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