Remembering Nanjing Massacre: The pursuit of historical truth and commitment to world peace

BEIJING, Aug. 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The year 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the World Anti-Fascist War. During that period, the Nanjing Massacre was one of the darkest moments.

On December 13, 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing, where they killed over 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers over the following six weeks. This atrocity stands as a national catastrophe for the Chinese people and a great calamity for humanity.

In recent years, a growing number of Chinese publications on the Nanjing Massacre have been translated into foreign languages, presenting historical truths to the global community. Among these publications is the Journal of Nanjing Massacre Studies. This quarterly peer-reviewed journal, distributed both in China and abroad, is co-sponsored by the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders and the Nanjing Press.

Since 2019, in collaboration with China International Communications Group, the journal has expanded its reach with English, Japanese and French editions, now circulating in over 50 countries and regions. Readers can find the journal at 420 globally renowned universities and libraries, including Harvard University and The British Library, over 200 Japanese friendship organizations, and more than 140 overseas book retailers.

Beijing Review interviewed descendants of foreign friends who aided China's resistance against Japanese aggression, as well as international media representatives, on this topic. Below are their observations and perspectives:

Michael Crook, Son of the China Friendship Medal winner Isabel Crook, Chair of International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives

Being mindful of the past is not in order to perpetuate hatred or seek revenge, but to learn from history and face the future, strive for peace, lasting peace. This is also what I expect from the Journal of Nanjing Massacre Studies.

I flipped through a couple of issues, which contained research on foreign friends who helped save Chinese people during the Nanjing Massacre, such as [German businessman] John Rabe and Austrian mechanic Rupert Hatz, etc. I found these very good, and I hope more such articles will be published in the future.

John Rabe's grandson, Thomas Rabe, is a good friend of mine. I suggest that descendants of international friends who helped publicize the atrocities, or helped rescue Chinese people from the massacre, might be asked to contribute articles, so that more people can understand the history of the Nanjing Massacre.

Eric Foster, Nephew of U.S. journalist Helen Foster Snow (1907-97)

The Journal of Nanjing Massacre Studies is a very well-documented piece of academic work with all the important references proving its authenticity, this means nobody can honestly speak out against it.

The reason I say this is that, four years ago, when I researched this terrible massacre for my soon-to-be-published book, there were still people on the Internet trying to deny that it ever happened. They were still trying to make it controversial. I ended up writing a nine-page article about it as we really want to let more people in the world know about it.

I hope that with the publication of this Journal of Nanjing Massacre Studies, more and more people will learn about this important history.

Mahnoor Makhdoom, Editor of The Daily Mail, Pakistan

I think many people around the world know more about Auschwitz than this. And the Jewish community in general has spent decades promoting and raising awareness about this. You can see countless movies, documentaries, books.

So I think the Journal of Nanjing Massacre Studies is an excellent initiative. I learned that it was started a few years ago. I think it has the potential to serve as an excellent platform to raise awareness in the international communities about this atrocity. I think they could use this as a platform to promote more international exchanges, seminars, cooperate with journals in other countries.

It's also [available] in different languages, including English. So I'm looking forward to getting more access to it so I can learn more about the history.

Einar Tangen, American commentator, Senior researcher of Taihe Institute

The Nanjing Massacre is something that I read about in school when I was studying history, both in America and in Great Britain. The Nanjing [Massacre] was the most visible and violent and massive demonstration of the cruelty and inhumanness that can be unleashed by mankind.

The Journal of Nanjing Massacre Studies is an important journal. It's very academic. I've gone through many of their articles on a year-by-year basis, and I think they're excellent. They do draw many conclusions, and they talk about a lot of the issues behind the massacre and what happened afterwards. There is a discussion about the legalistic side of it, because I'm a lawyer, it was interesting to me.

But many people don't read history, so how are you going to reach them? If you want to reach them, you're going to have to use videos, documentaries, social media. You have to have long form, short form. And language is not enough. You have to show visuals. What you do is you show pictures of Auschwitz, you show pictures in Nanjing, you show pictures of Gaza, and you show them all at the same time, so that people understand it is the same thing.

You have to awake the consciousness of the entire world to reach them in ways that they understand. And by doing that, you can seize hold of people's understanding. Then they can give them hope by saying, we can prevent this by not dehumanizing other people.

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SOURCE Beijing Review