RESEARCH by a mainland professor has unearthed first-hand evidence of the Rape of Nanjing, in which thousands of Chinese were massacred by the invading Japanese army in 1937.
Zhang Kaiyuan, a history professor at Central China Normal University, who accidentally found the wartime documents at Yale University in the United States three years ago, has recently completed his studies on the massacre.
He said the documents showed the Japanese army had turned the eastern China city into a killing field.
The evidence was contained in 132 boxes of letters, documents and photographs taken in China during World War II.
It is believed to be the largest library of documents available on the atrocity.
Among them are 17 bundles of letters describing the brutality of the Japanese army and photographs of Chinese comfort women.
'A few Japanese historians and nationalists argued that there was insufficient first-hand material recording what had actually happened during that period,' Professor Zhang said.