Descendants are determined to ensure their relatives' experiences are not forgotten

"What would be your attitude toward my father if he could come here?"

"I would forgive him."

That conversation, between the son of a Japanese Imperial Army soldier who was involved in Japan's invasion of China, and Li Zhenming, son of a Nanjing Massacre survivor, took place several years ago at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

Li said that if the Japanese soldier could come to the memorial hall, "it would mean he is now a man with justice in mind and he feels guilty about the atrocities committed in the past".

"Your father was also a victim of Japanese militarism," he told the man, who had visited Nanjing, Jiangsu province, to apologize for his father's behavior during the invasion.

Li's father, Li Gaoshan, was born in 1925. He was captured twice and survived two periods of detention during the occupation of Nanjing, which was the capital of China at the time.

He was forced to witness how hundreds of captives were lined up with their hands tied behind their backs and then shot by troops with machine guns.

Li Gaoshan died in 2018, but his son said the terrible history should not be buried with the deaths of the massacre survivors.

In August, the memorial hall named Li Zhenming and 12 other descendants of survivors as "inheritors of the historical memories of the Nanjing Massacre". He said he wanted to pass on what his father had told him about his experiences during the massacre, his hard life after the war and the calls for peace.

"My father had frequent nightmares," Li Zhenming said. "He was haunted by the terrible memories. We should remember the history, but not the hatred."

Though every Chinese knows about the Nanjing Massacre, many people in other countries are unfamiliar with the details or have never even heard of it.

Starting on Dec 13, 1937, the massacre was committed after Japanese troops captured Nanjing. In six weeks, approximately 300,000 civilians and unarmed soldiers were slaughtered, and many women were raped, according to Chinese historical documents.

In 2014, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, designated Dec 13 as a national memorial day for the victims of the massacre.

Xia Yuan, granddaughter of massacre survivor Xia Shuqin, is one of the 13 inheritors. Her grandmother, now 93, lost seven family members during the slaughter, and she and her 4-year-old sister spent several days in the same room as the bodies of their slain relatives.

According to Xia Yuan, her grandmother kept her memories of the massacre to herself and did not mention them to her family until the 1980s, when Zhu Chengshan, then-curator of the memorial hall, found her and invited her to travel to Japan to tell her story to people there.

"Later, my grandmother told us that she had concerns about her safety before she set off for Japan, but she made the trip without being accompanied by any family members," Xia Yuan recalled.

Years later, considering her grandmother's advanced age and poor health, Xia Yuan decided to become one of the inheritors.

The memories are hard to accept, even for many Chinese when they first hear the bloody details. Xia Yuan once spoke about the massacre to middle school students, many of whom were deeply shocked and said it was beyond their imagination.

"The students were too young to understand what it meant to witness family members die during the massacre. However, as they get older, they will have their own thoughts and opinions," she said.

"My grandmother seldom talks about her experiences in detail at home, although she is willing to share her memories with the public when invited. She seldom mentions her experiences to her descendants, but when she does, it takes quite a long time for her to recover from the pain and distress."

Telling her history also exposed Xia Shuqin to danger. A professor in Japan sued her, claiming that she had falsified the history of the massacre. Xia Shuqin traveled to Japan to face the court, but the professor failed to turn up and announced that he had dropped the lawsuit. When Xia Shuqin countersued the man for damaging her reputation, she won the case.

When Xia Yuan decided to take up the baton to preserve the memories of the massacre, her grandmother offered unwavering support, she said.

"My grandmother doesn't like to reopen her wounds, but she is unwilling to see the truth of the Nanjing Massacre denied. She lost her parents at age 8 during the massacre, so she had no one to rely on but herself," she said. "What matters in life is to make yourself stronger. My son has been having martial arts classes since he is very young, and I always tell him to face difficulties bravely."

Father, daughter contribution

Ma Jun is the grandson of late massacre survivor Ma Xiuying. He and his daughter, Ma Wenqian, have been contributing to the preservation of the memories.

He recorded the family's experiences during the massacre on the memorial hall's official WeChat account, and encouraged his daughter to become one of the inheritors of historical memories.

"In 1937, one of my grandmother's older brothers was taken away by the Japanese. My grandmother and her mother hid in a refugee camp, so they survived. They had to rely on each other after that, struggling to make a living. There was something in my grandmother's personality that was as tough as wild plants," Ma Jun said. "Her personality influenced our family deeply."

Ma Wenqian said, "My great-grandmother was an optimistic person and always laughed in the face of challenges. For her whole life, she wanted to get an apology from Japan, but she had to leave the world without that comfort."

Ma Xiuying died at age 99 in October last year. She told her family members to "testify as long as they live" and not let the history be forgotten.

"I will pass on that history and consider it the best consolation for my great-grandmother," Ma Wenqian said.

Influenced by her father, Ma Wenqian has chosen media as her major at university.

As a student, she has been working as a volunteer at the memorial hall to introduce the history of the massacre to visitors, and she plans to continue exposing the truth when she graduates.

"In the future, I may record the stories of the Nanjing Massacre in my own way through videos or books," she said.

Great responsibility

Li Yuhan, the youngest of the 13 inheritors of historical memories, has been providing guide services at the hall since he started elementary school. The 12-year-old is Xia Shuqin's great-grandson.

"Though he's young, he knows that his great-grandmother's health is not good, and he understands the responsibility of passing on the history," Xia Yuan, Li's mother, said.

"Now, my grandmother is getting older and she cannot see or hear properly," she said. "It is her wish that we testify on her behalf and let people know about the crimes committed by the Japanese troops."

On Dec 5, survivor Xiang Yuansong died at age 94 in Nanjing, bringing the number of survivors who passed away this year to seven. According to the memorial hall, only 54 registered survivors are still alive, and their average age is 92.

The central government has preserved the survivors' testimonies via documents and video footage. In 2015, the records of the massacre were listed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World Register.

In 2014, the memorial hall started to register the families of massacre victims. On Tomb Sweeping Day in 2019, the Assistance Association of the Victims in Nanjing by the Invading Japanese Army started collecting information about the survivors' descendants and began moves to allow them to become inheritors of the historical memory.

Ai Delin, director of the hall's cultural relics department, said information about more than 700 descendants has been collected during the past three years.

"A database of descendants has been established," he said. "The descendants have been invited to many activities, including exhibitions and lectures, to share their family stories with the public."

Zhou Feng, the hall's curator, said that more people will join the team of inheritors in the future to pass on the truth of history.

"We long for light in the future, but we should never forget the darkness in the past," Zhou said.

Li Jianyun and Xu Huimin contributed to this story.