China's archives seeks Japanese war crimes evidence

CHANGCHUN - A Chinese archives has asked the public to donate historical records that reveal Japanese war crimes during their invasion of China from the 1930s to 1940s.

The Jilin Provincial Archives in northeast China, one of the worst-ravaged areas during the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945), regarded public donations of evidence as "a meaningful supplement" to what it currently has, said Wang Man, an official with the archives.

The archives is appealing for letters, official documents, diaries, photographs and video footage, said Wang

"They are particularly rare archives with great historical value," he said.

The archives last week published 89 wartime documents, which reveal that Japanese soldiers slaughtered Chinese civilians and Japan organized large-scale immigration to the region during its invasion.

"After we published the documents, we received a lot of phone calls and many people wanted to donate related archives to us," said Wang.

The archives now is home to more than 100,000 documents on the Japanese invasion, with more than 90 percent in Japanese. They were recovered from a construction site underground in the 1950s.

"Some of the files are damaged and need a lot of time and manpower to repair and sort through," said Mu Zhanyi, deputy head of the archives.

Mu said they planned to invite more foreign experts to join in their work.