Photo exhibition shows Japanese wartime massacre in China

More than 200 photos are on exhibition in northeast China's Liaoning Province to tell the bitter history of the Japanese invading China in the 1930s and World War II.

The exhibition opened Tuesday and is hosted by the September 18th Historical Museum in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning, until May 25. It focuses on Chinese fighting the Japanese, and the Pingdingshan Massacre in 1932.

On Sept. 18, 1931, China became the first country to engage fascist forces, when the occupying Japanese army blew up a section of railway near Shenyang. The incident started a large-scale Japanese invasion in China that would last 14 years.

On Sept. 15, 1932, a self-defense army in Liaoning attacked Japanese troops in Qianjinbao and Pingdingshan villages of Fushun, killing or wounding more than 10 Japanese soldiers. The next day, the Japanese slaughtered more than 3,000 villagers, burning their bodies and burying them in the mountain. It was the first massacre of Japanese targeting Chinese civilians in The War Against Japanese Aggression.

The displayed photos show armed Chinese soldiers, the remains of Chinese victims, as well as survivors.

"The exhibition aims at unveiling the crimes of Japanese invaders in Fushun, and telling the history to visitors, so that they will never forget the humiliation our nation has gone through," said Fan Lihong, curator of the museum. Endi