Nanjing Massacre survivor passes away, only 32 registered survivors remain

NANJING -- Zhou Zhilin, who survived the Nanjing Massacre, passed away on July 20 at the age of 99, bringing the number of living registered survivors to 32, said the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders on Monday.

The Nanjing Massacre refers to when Japanese troops captured the then Chinese capital on Dec 13, 1937. Over six weeks, they killed approximately 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in one of the most barbaric episodes of World War II.

Zhou was born in December 1925. When the Nanjing Massacre unfolded, 12-year-old Zhou and his uncle encountered a squad of Japanese soldiers in a village at Qilin Township of Nanjing. In a moment of desperation, they both hid in the grass by a pond, where his uncle was tragically bayoneted to death by the Japanese soldiers. Zhou survived by playing dead.

Zhou recalled having three such near-death experiences during the Nanjing Massacre.

The Chinese government has preserved the survivors' testimonies in both written and video transcripts. The documents on the massacre were listed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World Register in 2015.