Fresh evidence of Nanjing Massacre found

NANJING - A batch of historical materials was donated to a Chinese memorial hall on Saturday as new evidence of war crimes related to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre perpetrated by the invading Japanese troops.

Eighteen items including several war logs were collected by Daito Satoshi, the abbot of Enkoji Temple in Japan, according to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders which received the donation.

On Dec 13, 1937, the Japanese troops captured Nanjing. In the following six weeks, they slaughtered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in one of the most barbaric episodes of WWII, known as the Nanjing Massacre.

The new evidence also includes an official warfare report documenting the brutalities unleashed by the Japanese troops in Nanjing such as killing prisoners of war and arson, and several war logs recording the activities of a Japanese army from October 1937 to April 1938.

"Some people in Japan refuse to acknowledge the Nanjing Massacre, and these precious wartime documents are ironclad proof," said Daito.

In 2005, Daito started collecting evidence of wartime brutalities committed by Japanese troops in China during WWII. He has collected and donated more than 3,000 historical materials to the memorial hall.

These new materials are very precious, and the memorial hall will carry out further studies on them and put them on public display in the future, said Zhang Jianjun, the curator of the memorial hall.