MOSCOW, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The horrific six-week period of catastrophe that befell Nanjing 88 years ago during World War II is still causing great indignation in today's world. Bloodstained and perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army, this chapter of history stands as a stark warning against historical amnesia.
At the entrance of the Victory Museum in Moscow, 70-year-old local resident Alexander described the massacre as "a tragedy, a catastrophe, a most real crime," likening it to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany against the Soviet people.
Growing up in the Soviet era, he recalled that the Nanjing Massacre was mentioned in school history textbooks and remains etched in the memory of many people of his generation.
Ilya, an environmental engineer in his early 30s from the northwestern Russian city of Cherepovets, said he learned about the massacre online. "It is an extremely sorrowful page in world history. Hundreds of thousands of unarmed Chinese civilians were brutally killed by Japanese invaders," he said.
At the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, first-year student Anastasia said her secondary school teacher once required students to read materials about the massacre.
"The Nanjing Massacre was a genocidal atrocity devoid of any justification. Japan must apologize and repent, and the international community should condemn it," she said. "I hope such a tragedy will never happen again."
"One cannot live without understanding history, especially World War II," Alexander said. "It has left an indelible mark on our nation and on humanity as a whole. We must pay tribute to all defenders of the motherland and pass on the truth, both heroism and suffering, to the younger generation."
The Nanjing Massacre inflicted profound trauma on the Chinese people. Yet in the postwar years, Japanese right-wing forces have refused to reflect on their past, denying well-documented facts and attempting to whitewash aggression through glorifying war, visiting the Yasukuni Shrine where class-A war criminals are honored, and revising history textbooks to falsify history.
Mikhail, a 45-year-old middle school teacher leading students on a visit to the Victory Museum, said that denying the Nanjing Massacre is hypocritical and shallow, showing disregard for historical truth. "It is fundamentally wrong. It violates humanity and morality," he said.
"Those who cannot even say 'sorry' are in fact the weakest," Mikhail added. "Forgetting the past, distorting right and wrong, and justifying one's own mistakes without admitting them will never lead to anything good."
Grigory, a third-year student at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said that the denial of history has become a consistent approach of the Japanese government. "They refuse to acknowledge crimes committed during the war of aggression against China, and even claim that this history never existed. Essentially, they are trying to erase it from memory," he said.
Alexander stressed that Japan's series of provocative words and actions is undermining the postwar international order. "If Japan fails to draw lessons from history," he said, "the result will ultimately be a tragic one." ■
