The Nanjing Massacre occurred in Nanjing, China from December 13th, 1937 to January, 1938. The mass killing, raping, robbing, kidnapping, destruction, and torturing of Chinese citizens by Japanese Imperial Army soldiers took place during these six weeks. The Second Sino-Japanese war was happening prior to World War II, where China was showing great resistence against Japan and its invasion. On December 13th, 1937, Japanese soldiers finally took seizure over Nanjing after fighting the Shanghai Battle and losing. During this seizure and under the Imperial Army, over 300,000 Chinese men, children, and women suffered at the hands of the Japanese soldiers while they committed inhumane acts. This tragic event was also known as the Rape of Nanjing due to the rape of anywhere between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women. Buildings were set on fire and tore down, mass executions took place, and the fight for control of Nanjing made this a highly controversial historical event between China and Japan. With over one third of the city of Nanjing being burnt down and destroyed within six weeks of Japanese invasion, this became known as one of the most horrific examples of the Imperial Army’s war crimes as a part of the Allies around the time that World War II was occurring.
Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall: Designer and Purpose
The Memorial Hall was built to remember the victims of this tragic event, and to not let the war crimes that were committed go forgotten or unnoticed. It is located in Nanjing, China and initally opened on August 15th, 1985. It has undergone three major expansions in 1997, 2007, and 2015. The designer of this memorial hall’s name is Qi Kang. He is a Chinese Architect that has designed numerous respected arts in China, with this memorial hall being his most well-known. Qi Kang was the one in charge of designing this memorial hall and its first two expansions that occurred years later.
During the first expansion in 1995, there were new spaces available for guests to walk through, including an outside area, near the graveyard of those who died during this massacre, where you can walk alongside multiple different statues that represent different tragedies that occurred during this event. The statues and area of the memorial hall are the main focus at hand, due to their emotional tie to their emotional conveyance of the atrocities that occurred in those six weeks of Japanese invasion. He wanted to represent the themes of tragedy, disaster, and death.
“Qi wanted it to feel like a tomb. Much of the original site used cinderblock materials and grey color for a somber effect.”
-Evelyn Ting
There are three main parts of the memorial hall. The outdoor exhibit, the skeletal remains of the victims, and the exhibition hall of historical documents. The outdoor exhibit is the L- shaped area with the statues, seating areas, reflecting pool, a ceremonial courtyard, and a dark contemplation room. Most of these features were added during the first expansion of the memorial hall. An important aspect to mention is that there is a graveyard right next to this outdoor exhibit, which is where thousands off victims were buried. The area with the skeletal remains of victims is located inside the memorial hall. It includes skeletal parts that were put back together and laid out on ashy floors, and also just piles of bones in other areas. Finally, the exhibition hall of historical documents is located inside, and is the most modern exhibition of this memorial. It includes pictures of survivors, historical documents proving the Japanese war crimes, and a detailed description of the War of Resistence against Japan.
The Message
Qi Kang had a clear vision of what he wanted this memorial hall to represent. The message being sent by these statues within this memorial hall is tragedy, loss, and inhumanity. These statues are significant to the event from China’s perspective, because from the Japanese side of this event, officials have gone even as far to try to lower the death count to one-third of what has been reported. There have been attempts to cover up the past and these war crimes, but this memorial hall does not let those Chinese victims go forgotten. Each statue has a name and typically a four-lined inscription that serves to be a poem of the tragedies the victims went through in those six weeks.
Family Ruined is a statue located on the outskirts of the Memorial Hall, representing a greiving mother holding her deceased child.
With over 20 statues similar in nature to “Family Ruined”, they are a representation of the horrors the Chinese citizens of Nanjing went through during the Japanese invasion. Though they each have unique features and details, some common themes are women with torn clothing, piles of bodies, dead children, or women trying to escape. It seems like a brutal way to invite sympathy, when in reality it is the harsh truth of what those victims went through.
Initial Reactions
The view on this memorial hall depending on which of the two countries you were in. Japan was not in favor of this hall and the way it portrayed the country’s past and citizens, meaning they were receiving unwanted attention. Chinese citizens were all for the establishment of this memorial hall and its expansions, as it was a way to preserve their past and honor their lost citizens. Globally, this hall started getting attention after its first expansion and served to educate people on the events that occurred during this invasion. There was strong support for it, especially by the previous Allies of World War II, who all took a hit from this event.
For Chinese citizens, this memorial hall incited patriostism and heavy national pride. It was long awaited for somebody to dedicate a monument or memorial to all the lives lost for the sake of war, and when it finally came, the general sentiments were positive domestically. This was also a way to redirect outrage from the Chinese Government onto the Japanese Imperial Army. Chinese citizens felt betrayed by the order to remove Chinese forces from Nanjing that came from the Government, and for many years the government for the 300,000 deaths. After this memorial hall was built, that rage and grief was redirected almost fully onto the Japanese Imperial Army. This, in turn, resolved some domestic conflicts. This was the best way to set the truth straight and create a pathway to trust between the Government and its citizens.
The same cannot be said for Japan, on the other hand. There were great amounts of backlash from the Japanese Government and citizens who denied the Nanjing Massacre ever happened. Though there was support that came from Japanese progressives, the majority were against the establishment of this memorial hall due to how it portrayed Japan. Many claimed that this memorial hall was meant to be a representation of “Anti-Japanese Sentiments”, which was the primary cause for all the backlash.
“Its main thesis are that the Nanjing Massacre is a fabrication and a propoganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that Iris Chang’s book The Rape of Nanking, published in 1997, is based on claims of the CCP with the aim of developing anti-Japanese activities and campaigns especially in the USA.”
-Guido Samarani
Current Perspectives: Should the Memorial Hall be Removed due to Controversy?
Over the years, there have been some general apologies that came from Japanese Channels over the backlash that came from this memorial hall being built. There is also a Japanese group called the Nanjing Incident Research Group that is made up of Japanese scholars, researchers, and activists that attempt to support China’s claims by finding more evidence and historical documents that are incriminating for Japan.
However, there are still a lot of negative views towards it that are likely not going to change. For example, Justice Major Nagano Shigeto and Tokyo Governer Shintaro Ishihara both have made public statements that accuse China of having made up the massacre, the number of deaths, and the war crimes that were committed by Imperial soldiers. Another example is the Yasukuni Shrine, that is visited regularly, which is a place to visit graves of Japanese Imperial soldiers, many of which likely committed war crimes against China.
This monument is controversial for untraditional reasons. Two countries were battling for control over land, and one ended up having an Imperial Army that committed war crimes upon the other around the time of World War II. This was a major event that occurred that created a significant divide between the two countries. This is a highly controversial memorial hall that is unwanted by Japan, but that does not mean it should be taken down. Those 300,000 Chinese lives deserve to be honored, remembered, and memorialized for the crimes they suffered as innocent citizens that happened to be in the wrong place.
To conclude, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall should not be taken down or removed. It is a safe place to remember the victims and that atrocities they suffered before their deaths. Although there is major controversy in Japan about the validity of China’s claims that are the purpose of this memorial, politics should not get in the way of human rememberance. These victims deserve their own place that honors them, their lives, their stories, and their experiences that they did not get the chance to tell.
Lu, S. (2013). The Nanjing Massacre: Primary Source Records and Secondary Interpretations—A Textual Critique of Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi’s Review. China Review International, 20(3/4), 259–282. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/43818315
Morgan, R. (2002). Chinese, Japanese, and United States Views of the Nanking Massacre: The Supreme Court Trial of Shiro Azuma. American Journal of Chinese Studies, 9(2), 235–246. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/44288708
Sedgwick, J. B. (2009). Memory on Trial: Constructing and Contesting the “Rape of Nanking” at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 19461948. Modern Asian Studies, 43(5), 1229–1254. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/40285010
Ting, E. (2020). Memorial for the Nanjing Massacre – The Perpetuity of Accountability | Global World War II Monuments. Global World War II Monuments. https://worldwariimonuments.org/items/show/20
Violi, P. (2012). Educating for Nationhood: A Semiotic Reading of the Memorial Hall for Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. Journal of Educational Media, Memory & Society, 4(2), 41–68. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/43049391
Zhu, Y. (2021). Hot interpretations of difficult heritage: the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre in China. Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/jchmsd-05-2021-0085
Contested Histories. (2024). ”Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in China ”. https://contestedhistories.org/wp-content/uploads/China_-Nanjing-Massacre-Memorial-Hall-in-Nanjing.pdf
Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. (2020, April 2). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Hall_of_the_Victims_in_Nanjing_Massacre_by_Japanese_Invaders
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2018). Nanjing Massacre | Summary & Facts. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Nanjing-Massacre
THE NANJING MASSACRE IN SOME JAPANESE HISTORY TEXTBOOKS on JSTOR. (2024). Jstor.org. https://doi.org/10.2307/24580666
USC Shoah Foundation. (2023). Nanjing Massacre. USC Shoah Foundation; University of Southern California. https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/nanjing-massacre
Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, April 23). Qi Kang (architect). Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation.
