Japanese man donates Battle of Nanjing documents to China

A Japanese man has donated 16 Chinese historical military documents to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall.

76-year-old retired primary school principal, Iwamatsu, discovered the documents in a bookshop in Japan in 2007, and decided to return them to China after bought them.

They contain orders issued by a commander named Tang Shengzhi relating to the Battle of Nanjing in 1937 when the then Chinese capital was captured by Japanese troops, and a permit for foreign missionaries.

It’s not the first time that Iwamatsu has visited the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. Back in 1997 when he was a high school teacher, he was part of a delegation from the Japanese National Board of Education.

On returning to Japan, Iwamatsu told his students about the history of the Nanjing Massacre, where over 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers were killed by Japanese soldiers.

Iwamatsu attended the donation ceremony in Nanjing with a Japanese delegation visiting Nanjing to commemorate the victims of the Nanjing Massacre by planting trees during the Tomb-sweeping Day holiday. The practice has been an annual event since 1986.