More than 100 copies of documents and photos from the time of
the Nanjing Massacre have been added to the Memorial Hall in the
city.?
The original papers have been loaned to the museum courtesy of a
relative of the American "patron saint" of Nanjing refugees, Minnie
Vautrin, who labored tirelessly to help keep the victims from harm
in 1937.
Cindy Vautrin, who presented the pieces on Wednesday morning, is
the granddaughter of Minnie Vautrin's brother. She gave 21 file
photographs, 47 letters, Vautrin's passport and the Red Cross
armband Minnie Vautrin wore as she worked.
"I feel so sorry about that history, and so proud of what my
ancestor did," said Cindy Vautrin, quoted by local media.
Minnie Vautrin (1886-1941) was an American missionary.
After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1912, she
went to Hefei, capital of Anhui Province, teaching and doing
missionary work.
Between 1919 and 1940, she taught at Nanjing Jinling Women's
College, when the Nanjing Massacre happened.
Working with more than 20 foreigners at the college, Vautrin set
up refugee camps and saved the lives of at least 10,000 women and
children, who called her their "Goddess of Mercy."
While guarding the camps, her famous comment was: "Whoever
(Japanese soldiers) wants to go through this gate will have to go
over my dead body."
From August 12, 1937 to April 1940, Vautrin kept a daily
diary.
She sent the diaries and letters to her relatives and friends in
the US, giving them an accurate record of what was going on in
China at the time.
"On the morning of December 13, 1937, the Japanese invaders
entered the city from Zhonghua Gate, they raped women, burnt houses
and killed people. Many women and children escaped to the refugee
camp at Nanjing Jinling Women's College, all of them were extremely
frightened …" she wrote in her diary.
Vautrin went back to the US to get medical treatment for an
illness on May 14, 1940. Exactly one year later she committed
suicide.
Ai Delin, an official from the Memorial Hall, said some
reproductions will be shown to the public during the "December13 --
Nanjing Massacre Historical Fact Exhibition" in Beijing this
August.
(China Daily July 22, 2005)