The names of 26 recently confirmed victims of the Nanjing Massacre have been engraved on the "wailing wall" of the Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
The wall features 10,664 names of victims. In 1995, when it was first constructed, 3,000 names of victims were engraved to represent the more than 300,000 people killed during the massacre.
For many survivors and their family members who never found the remains of the victims, the "wailing wall" is the only place to remember their loved ones.
A Nanjing Massacre survivor finds a name on the "wailing wall." /VCG Photo
Xia Shuqin, a massacre survivor, held a memorial ceremony to remember her seven family members on Monday. Following Chinese tradition, she used black ink to write the names of the family members.
"I'm illiterate, but I remember every stroke of the characters of their names," said the 89-year-old, who was stabbed three times during the massacre.
"My father She Peigeng was seized by the Japanese troops when I was seven," said She Wenbin, whose father's name was recently added onto the wall. "He never returned, and I was told that he was drowned by the Japanese troops."
She Wenbin, a family member of a victim of the Nanjing Massacre, mourns in front of the "wailing wall". /Xinhua Photo
The names of the victims were confirmed by the city's committees on wartime loss and Nanjing Massacre investigations, survivors' dictated or published documents and information from victims' relatives, said the head of the memorial hall.
New names will be inscribed on the wall every year before the National Memorial Day, but the confirmation work is difficult, according to the memorial hall.
The Nanjing Massacre took place when the Japanese army captured the then-capital of China on December 13, 1937. More than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers were killed over the span of six weeks.