(Originally aired: 08-03-98)
SAM CHEN Political & Social Activist Scholar Founder: "Alliance in Memory of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre" & DR. HOWARD SHING Chinese War Orphan
Chinese Holocaust Museum The Chinese Holocaust Museum of San Francisco celebrated its second anniversary in the Sunset District earlier this year. Founded by history professor Tien-wei Wu in 2000 and opened in temporary quarters in Oakland, the museum moved to its current San Francisco home in January of 2003. The storefront museum, a non-profit organization funded by private donations, stands at 1914 Lawton St., near 25th Avenue. The museum features two rooms of exhibits documenting the full 14-year history of the Sino-Japanese War (1931 - 1945), but its emphasis is clearly on the gruesome period of Chinese history after 1937 when the Japanese Imperial Army broke through the defenses of the city of Nanking. During the first 90 days of occupation, more than 300,000 Nanking civilians were killed and tens of thousands of women were imprisoned for "military prostitution" - sex slavery - while, to the north, brutal medical experiments were conducted on a captive population in a building that still stands in Harbin (Manchuria), the infamous Unit 731. The horrors are difficult to comprehend at the museum - China lost 35 million people during the war. The museum is organized in four departments: the Nanking massacre (the killing of civilians when the Japanese Imperial Army entered the city); Chinese slave labor (including U.S. prisoners of war); Unit 731 (site of infamous medical experiments and the testing of chemical and biological weapons); and, in a separate room, comfort women. The scratchy photos are graphic and include documentation on surgery and sexual torture. The exhibit is not for the faint of heart.
