The Memorial of the Nanjing Massacre
The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall or formally, The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders is a hall to memorialize those that were killed in the Nanjing Massacre by the Imperial Japanese Army in and around the then capital of China, Nanjing, after it fell on December 13, 1937. t is located in the southwestern corner of Nanjing known as Jiangdongmen, near a site where thousands of bodies were buried, called a “pit of ten thousand corpses”.
The Nanjing Memorial Hall was built in 1985 by the Nanjing Municipal Government in memory of the 300,000 victims who lost their lives during the Nanjing Massacre. In 1995, it was enlarged and renovated. The memorial exhibits historical records and objects, and uses architecture, sculptures, and videos to illustrate what happened during the Nanjing Massacre. Many historical items were donated by Japanese members of a Japanese–Chinese friendship group, which also donated a garden located on the museum grounds.
It occupies a total area of approximately 28,000 square meters, including about 3,000 square meters of building floor space.
The memorial consists of three major parts: outdoor exhibits, sheltered skeletal remains of victims, and an exhibition hall of historical documents.
The outdoor exhibit include statues, sculptures, relief carvings, tablets, and a large wall listing the names of victims, as well as an atonement tablet and memorial walkway. The memorial walkway displays footprints of survivors, some of which were impressed as recently as 2002.
SSkeletal Remains
The skeletal remains of massacre victims, now exhibited in a coffin-shaped display hall, were excavated from Jiangdongmen in 1985; 208 more were uncovered in 1998.
Exhibition hall
The tomb-like exhibition hall, half underground, contains more than 1000 items related to the massacre, including an immense collection of pictures, objects, charts, and photographs. Paintings, sculptures, illuminated display cabinets, multimedia screens and documentary films serve to demonstrate to visitors the crimes committed by the Japanese military.
