Humans of China: "I Still Have Nightmares About These Things"

This article comes from Humans of China (WeChat ID: humans-of-china), which aims to document and tell the stories of the many varied people of this vast country, one individual at a time. The following is an account from a survivor of the Panjiayu Massacre, perpetrated by the Japanese on Jan 25, 1941 in Hebei during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

I was 10 years old when the Japanese suddenly came to our village, it was two days before the Spring Festival.

They stayed for just one day but completely changed my life forever. They killed my mother, my two sisters, and my only brother. My sisters were just two and three years old, and my brother was only four. They were just some of around 1,200 people they killed that day. I can still remember them clearly and still, to this very day I miss them.

My dad and I were the only ones to survive but amongst all the chaos I lost him. Luckily, I was found by an old man who also happened to be my neighbor. When he found me, my clothes were on fire. It was winter and very cold, so I was wearing a lot of clothes and luckily the fire didn’t reach my skin. There was no water and he had to put the fire out to pick me up and carry me to safety, so he urinated on my clothes. He then told me not to cry and to stay as quiet as possible before picking me up and taking me into the mountains.

I was so scared and I saw many terrible things that day – anyone who stayed at home was killed. They didn’t care if you were a man or a woman, young or old, they just wanted to kill people and they did it in the most horrific way. They’d beat people, stab people, shoot people. They pulled legs of babies open and then cut them in half, they ripped babies from the stomachs of pregnant women and then burned everything they could.

They wore green uniforms, had mustaches, and had bikes and cars and long guns with knives on the end which made it hard to fight back as we had nothing. People did try and fight back but it didn’t work. I don’t know how many [soldiers] there were but there were lots of them and they killed and then left.

After the Japanese left me and the old man, we returned to see the destruction. People were unrecognizable as they were all just black bodies with no hair or clothes.

My dad and the man who saved my life both survived, and I also called him dad. I am forever grateful for his help.

This year I am 89 years old, very soon to be 90 and I am one of four survivors left who saw these terrible things in this village, most of the other survivors have since died. I still have nightmares about these things and I am still very scared. If I met a man who massacred my family or friends I wouldn’t know what to say to him but I know that I wouldn’t want to meet him.

READ: "Beijing Life Made Me More Confident and Brave"

Photos courtesy of Cameron Hack