Nanjing Massacre survivor passes away at 100

NANJING -- Wang Heng, a Nanjing Massacre survivor, passed away on April 7 at the age of 100, the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders said Tuesday.

Wang's death has reduced the number of registered survivors to 57. Four survivors died this year, according to the memorial hall.

The Nanjing Massacre took place when Japanese troops captured the city on Dec 13, 1937. Over six weeks, they killed about 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in one of the most barbaric episodes of World War II.

Wang lost his father during the massacre. His father was physically assaulted by Japanese soldiers and later fell seriously ill and died.

At the age of 90, Wang opened an account on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo with the help of his granddaughter to disseminate the truth about the massacre. The account has nearly 8,000 followers and many Weibo users expressed their condolences by commenting on his last post after learning Wang's demise.

The Chinese government has preserved the survivors' testimonies, recorded in both written and video documents. The documents on the massacre were listed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World Register in 2015.