73 foreign volunteers help spread Nanjing Massacre history

NANJING -- The memorial hall of Nanjing Massacre victims in east China's Jiangsu Province has recruited 73 new foreign volunteers to help spread the history during WWII.

The volunteers from 17 countries, including the United States, the Republic of Korea and Iran, will serve as docents and translators and contribute to international exchange activities, according to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in the provincial capital of Nanjing.

"This place serves as a reminder for the future, a lesson that must never be forgotten, no matter how painful or sad it is to remember," Jonathan Gragert, one of the volunteers from the United States, said at the oath-taking ceremony held on Sunday.

"It is the responsibility of every man, woman and child to remember the horror that happened here so that such an event can never happen again," said Gragert, who teaches in Hohai University in Nanjing.

The memorial hall started recruiting international volunteers in 2008.

Zhang Jianjun, the curator of the memorial hall, said the international volunteers are expected to become seeds that cultivate the idea of peace in the hearts of audiences from around the world and become guardians of harmony.

The Nanjing Massacre took place when Japanese troops captured the city on Dec 13, 1937. Over six weeks, more than 300,000 people -- both unarmed soldiers and civilians -- were brutally murdered and more than 20,000 women raped, according to Chinese records.