File photo: Zhe Sizi

Nanjing Massacre survivor Zhu Sizi died on Wednesday at 98. 

She died on the 73rd anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender to China. 

In Winter 1937, the Zhuzhuang village that Zhu lived in was ransacked by the Japanese army, and the eight tile-roofed houses of her family were burned down. Hiding in the burrows of a vegetable garden behind the houses, she and her family survived, according to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. She was born on June 3, 1920.

Japan invaded northeast China in September 1931. Six years later, the Japanese invaders occupied Nanjing, then the capital of China, on December 13, and started six weeks of destruction and slaughter in the city. 

File photo: Zhu Sizi shows her identity card of Nanjing Massacre survivor.

More than 300,000 Chinese were killed and over 20,000 women were raped. There are less than 100 living survivors today. The Japanese involved were tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal that rendered a guilty verdict.

Since 2014, December 13 has become the National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre.

Another Nanjing Massacre survivor, Lv Jinbao, died Tuesday at the age of 94. He lost his sight due to bombing by the Japanese invaders. He was born on April 12, 1924.

She Ziqing, also a Nanjing Massacre survivor, had been volunteering to introduce that part of history at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders for 14 years. He died in November 2017 at the age of 84.