‘Lest We Forget: Nanjing Massacre, 1937’ by Xu Zhigeng

Extracted from ‘Lest We Forget: Nanjing Massacre, 1937’  by Xu Zhigeng

Chapter Three: The Safety Zone, Page 70, Paragraph 1

The women refugees tried to disguise themselves by applying soot to their pretty faces. They cut off their long hair. Some even shaved their heads and wrapped them in coarse blue cloth. To hide their feminine figures they put on baggy cotton-padded long black gowns. All these efforts had only one purpose – to protect themselves from the ravages of Japanese troops. Smiles disappeared totally from these nondescript beings.

One morning, whether to seek temporary relief from unbearable mental pressure or to assert their femininity and sense of beauty, a dozen girls washed the soot from their faces and replaced their cotton-padded shapeless gowns with colorful satin qipaos. Each time with a bundle of belongings they headed for the rockery garden on the college campus. Admiring each other, they laughed and joked playfully. For a short while mirth and festivity dominated the bamboo grooves. They never expected that their happy laughter would cost them their lives. Japanese Lorries happened to pass by and the soldiers inside saw and heard them. The Lorries stormed into the college campus and the girls were taken away, never to return.

                                                                                                     The Book speaks of :

 In December 1937, the invading Japanese troops seized Nanjing without meeting substantial resistance. The city was sacked, the soldiers committing arson, murder, looting and rape over a period of more than six weeks. One group of innocent people after another was marched away to be massacred; for a time the shore of Yangste River was strewn with corpses as more than 300,000 innocent people perished during the massive slaughter.