US first Nanjing Massacre themed museum opens in Los Angeles

The first Nanjing Massacre-themed museum in the United States, the L.A. Memorial Hall of American Heroes during Nanjing Massacre, has opened in Los Angeles.

The memorial hall was inaugurated on December 31, 2015 -- the year marking the 70th anniversary of the WWII victory -- and honours 22 Americans who risked their lives to stay on in Nanjing and help the Chinese people during the massacre in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing by the Japanese army, Xinhua reported.

From December 13, 1937 to late January 1938, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers were killed in a bloody massacre carried out by Japanese soldiers after the city fell to the Japanese army.

One of the photos displayed at the memorial hall shows Dr. Robert O. Wilson -- a surgeon at the American-administered University Hospital --treating a 14-year-old boy in Gulou Hospital. The boy was seriously stabbed in his right leg by the bayonet of a Japanese soldier.

Wilson, the only foreign surgeon present during the Nanjing Massacre, saved thousands of Chinese people, according to his daughter Marge Garrett.

With 335 photos, 94 historical objects and 115 books and videos on display, the memorial hall will try to show the world the truth about the Nanjing Massacre.

"There are many people in the world who do not know about the historical fact of the Nanjing Massacre, especially people overseas. So we need to not only inform people in China, more importantly, we have to let people outside China know about the truth," said Zhu Chengshan, co-curator of the memorial hall.