For 80-year-old Li Guojie, the annual July 7 commemoration of the Lugouqiao (Marco Polo Bridge) Incident -- which marked the start of Japan's all-out assault on China in 1937 -- serves as a chance to remember his lost relatives. 

Several of his uncles and aunts were killed by shelling in the first days of the war when Japanese troops attacked Wanping County in southwestern Beijing.

 

Sitting in a wheel chair, Li, who lives only a few hundred meters from the bridge, attended a historical exhibition yesterday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

 

The exhibition opened yesterday at a museum in the old Wanping County dedicated to remembering the war.

 

Li Changchun, a standing member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, attended the opening ceremony. He paid tribute to those who fought and lost their lives in the war of resistance.

 

More than 800 relics and 600 photos are on display, including 141 items that are on show for the first time.

 

The exhibition covers Chinese people's resistance, cooperation between Kuomintang and the CPC during the war, and atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders.

 

For 77-year-old Beijing resident Shang Shikui, the exhibition brought back the dark days of Japanese occupation.

 

"Each time I forgot to bow to Japanese soldiers on the street, they would slap me in the face. But as a little boy then, how could I always remember to bow to strangers?" Shang said.

 

In Nanjing, a website -- www.neverforget.com.cn -- was launched yesterday to commemorate the Nanjing Massacre, during which invading Japanese troops killed 300,000 Chinese people, most of them civilians, in December 1937.

 

An opening ceremony was held in the Nanjing Memorial Hall for Compatriots Murdered in the Nanjing Massacre.

 

The website is being jointly run by the memorial hall, and two other leading domestic portals www.sina.com.cn and www.longhoo.net. "The website will serve as the most comprehensive and accurate platform for people around the world to know and remember that part of history," said Zhu Chengshan, curator of the memorial hall.

 

(China Daily July 8, 2005)