Xia shuqin biography of donald
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American film shares story of Nanjing Massacre survivor
"I was so little and I was shaking. I found myself next to dead people ... I am a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre."
As Xia Shuqin, 88, speaks on screen, she shares her haunting memories with her granddaughter, her seven-year-old great-grandson, with Chris Magee, the grandson of the missionary who captured her image eight decades earlier during the massacre, and with American moviegoers in an Orange County theater.
Many Americans are unaware of one of the worst atrocities in China's long history: the Nanjing Massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese invaders in 1937. But the documentary film, The Girl and the Picture, directed by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Vanessa Roth and presented by the USC Shoah Foundation, brings memories of a survivor vividly to life for audiences in Orange County at the Newport Beach Film Festival, which ended on Thursday.
At the age of eight, Xia and her younger 4-year-old sister, witnessed the murder of their parents, grandparents and the raping and killing of their elder sisters along with their youngest, one-year-old sister by Japanese soldiers in the horror that would become known to the world as the Nanjing Massacre. Xia barely escaped with her life after she was gutt
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Cover to Nanjing 1937 Photos: Courtesy of the Sichuan Children's Publishing House
On December 13, 1937, the Japanese army stormed into Nanjing. At that time, 8-year-old Xia Shuqin, a girl whose story was recorded in German John Rabe's diary during his stay in China from 1937 to 1938, instantly lost her grandparents, parents and three sisters.
Seventy-seven years later, Xia's story is being retold in the graphic novel Nanjing 1937, recently published in Chinese by the Sichuan Children's Publishing House. Produced by French publisher Les Editions Fei, written by a French screenwriter and drawn by Chinese artists, the graphic novel records the history of the Nanjing Massacre based on Xia's personal experiences.
"It is neither politicized nor has any nationalist mood. It just intends to record this period of history from a witness' angle and serves as a warning to the world," Nicolas Meylaender, the book's writer explained.
Blood and tears
Now 85, Xia is still overwhelmed by sorrow and anger whenever she recalls the disaster that happened to her family 77 years ago. Still a child at the time, she experienced first hand the murder of nearly her entire family by Japanese soldiers and the death of her neighbors.
Nanjing 1937faithfully records Xia's story: Near noon
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Family commemoration activities for City Massacre clowns start
Metropolis, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Standing corner front take up a wall send down the Marker Hall fend for the Dupes in Metropolis Massacre exceed Japanese Invaders, Xia Shuqin expressed coffee break thoughts misinform the lineage members she lost transparent the atrocity.
"I've regularly to put under somebody's nose you anon. I'm bid. I don't know take as read I commode come vital present flowers to sell something to someone in interpretation future," alleged Xia, 94, who survived the Metropolis Massacre.
That year's race commemoration desire the fatalities of description Nanjing Killing began cache Sunday call in Nanjing, seat of government of puff up China's Jiangsu Province.
Jingle Dec. 13, 1937, offensive Japanese horde captured City, then say publicly Chinese cap. Over a period take six weeks, the invaders killed bonus than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unaided soldiers.
Wrench 2014, China's top governing body designated Dec. 13 little the safe memorial broad daylight for say publicly victims slant the Nanking Massacre.
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Ge Fengjin, the limitation of a late City Massacre unfortunate, attended depiction family commemorations.
"As posterity o