Modern Express News (Reporter Zhang Ran) December 13, 2021 is the eighth National Day of Commemoration for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Affected by the global epidemic, many international friends this year have no way to come to the scene of the public ceremony, but this does not prevent them from sending condolences and praying for peace, and they specially sent a video.
"Only by remembering the suffering caused by war will our descendants know how to cherish peace." John Maggie's grandson Chris Maggie said in the video. During the Nanjing Massacre, John Maggie risked his life to stay in Nanjing and photograph the atrocities committed by the Japanese invading China. This is the only moving image of the Nanjing Massacre ever found. "During a period of war and chaos, although my grandfather had been told to leave, he chose to stay in Nanjing, and together with many peaceful people, personally, to send protection and love to these people who were in urgent need of help. This heart of peace is also becoming stronger in the process of protecting others. I will follow in my grandfather's footsteps and follow his example. ”
In 2017, Chris Maggie traveled to Nanjing to search for and photograph images of his grandfather. Their grandchildren traveled through time and space together to record Nanjing with the camera, one filming destruction and the other filming rebirth.
"The Story of Purple Grass" lyricist Takako Daimon also expressed his condolences to the victims of the Nanjing Massacre through video. In Japan, a folk anti-war choir founded in 1998, the Purple Golden Grass Choir, tells the world the history of the massacre that occurred in Nanjing in 1937 by singing the story of the purple grass. "I think the feelings conveyed by music can transcend language, transcend borders, and transcend time." In 2001, Takako Daimon came to Nanjing for the first time with a choir, and the purple golden grass also became a symbol of Sino-Japanese friendship. Today, she has entered the age of rarity, and she still has not stopped creating, this time focusing on the Japanese orphans who were abandoned in China after Japan's defeat in the war. "I deeply feel the importance of mutual assistance regardless of borders, how generous the Chinese who rescued and raised The orphans of the War in Japan, the subject of orphans in the war, I have been interviewing and brewing for nearly 20 years. The members of the choir, including orphans, sang peace with us, and even if our voices were very weak, the voices against war would never stop. ”
Meiling Liu, a Chinese from Canada, and members of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Peace Education in Toronto have spent more than a decade successfully convincing the local education bureau to offer a history course on the Asian theaters of World War II in Ontario public schools. In recent years, they have also planned to build an Asia-Pacific Peace Memorial and Education Center in Toronto. "My team and I will do our best to continue to educate the next generation about their stories, so that more people can understand this painful history and learn the preciousness of peace."