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screamed, “Now that you are gone, what should I do?”
I went to look for my dad. I found him in a sitting position with his head in his lap. I thought he had
just fainted. I put my hand to a bayonet wound in his back, but there was no blood. I felt my dad must have
been sleeping. I tried to shake him awake, but he fell forward. It was then that I saw his face was covered in
blood. He had been shot in the face.
I went back to my elder sister and told her what happened. We cried together. Then, we heard more
screaming. My sister suggested we hide in one of the houses. She had been stabbed and, under her overcoat
I could see icicles of blood falling to the ground. We went into the house and I tried to clean her wound. We
hid under the bed of the house.
The next day we saw Japanese soldiers looting. We were very scared. The soldiers came into the room,
but didn’t fi nd us so we were safe.
The following day, we saw a woman looking for her husband. I recognized her as the wife of the famous
Chinese opera singer. I went out and called to her. She told me to come with her and for me to fetch my sister.
We went to her house, crying and walking. She had a young son of her own. When we got to her house, she
asked if we had eaten. We said no and she decided to cook us some rice before taking us to the International
Safety Zone. While she was preparing the rice, Japanese soldiers came into the house and grabbed her. Her
child was holding into her leg and screaming. She told him not to cry. Another soldier hit the child and kicked
and dragged the woman into the next room and raped her.
Another Japanese soldier found my sister hiding on the fl oor. He took her into another room and raped
her. I don’t know how many soldiers went in there with my sister. Eventually, all the soldiers left. The woman
went into the room and came out carrying my sister who couldn’t walk. She then took her child, I took my
sister and we left.
When we were leaving, I remembered my baby brother. I hadn’t heard him through the night. I wanted
to go back for him, but the woman wouldn’t let me. She said I needed to carry my sister because she had to
carry her son. We had no choice; we couldn’t go back! So, without a chance to check on my baby brother, I
left.
We eventually arrived at the gates of the International Safety Zone. Along the way, we saw corpses
everywhere. Some were disemboweled with their guts and even fetuses hanging out. The iron gates of the
Zone were closed when we arrived. It was full of people inside and there were lots of people outside trying
to get in. Japanese soldiers were trying to grab young women right in front of the place. The refugees tried
to stop them and at the same time, people screamed through the gates for them to let us in. The gates were
opened and we all rushed into the Safety Zone.
Inside, there were many people. My sister and I eventually ended up hiding under a staircase. A woman
came by and gave us congee. She saw two kids with no adults and asked us our story. We told her and she
brought us upstairs. Her last name was Xia. She cleaned us up and took care of us for two days.
It was not really a place of safety. The Japanese soldiers ordered tens of thousands of us to leave. They
would divide the men and women and children. The men were brought to the center. The soldiers would
then ask if this man had a family member there to identify him. If not, he was taken away and bound. All
this happened in less than a minute. It was very crowded and impossible to see who was there. Adults were
holding up their young children to see for them. This was how they took away the young men. We knew these
men were being slaughtered after they had left because one man had escaped and come back to the Safety
Zone to tell us. He had crawled through corpses after they had all been shot.
My two grandmothers living outside the city had been safe. The Japanese soldiers did not reach their
place. The people from the International Safety Zone took us back there. I wanted to know what happened
to the bodies of my parents and my baby brother. I went back to check, but all the corpses were gone and
the alley had been cleaned. I did fi nd little shoes that my mom had made. When I found them, I cried. Some
neighbors came out and told me that a baby boy had been found dead close to his mother. This must have
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