Nanjing Massacre hall receives 130,000 visitors during Qingming holiday

China's Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders received more than 130,000 visitors during the Tomb-sweeping Day holiday that ended Sunday.

Long queues were formed at the gate of the memorial hall in Nanjing, capital of eastern China's Jiangsu Province, before 8 a.m. every day during the three-day holiday. In peak time, visitors had to wait for more than two hours before they could enter the hall.

"I can't remember how many history courses I've had and how many times I've read historical documents about the Nanjing Massacre. But when I stood at the memorial hall, nothing made me sad like this," said Li Ziying, a university student from the city of Wuxi.

On Friday, a farmer who only gave her surname as Gao from northern China's Hebei Province donated 11,000 yuan (around 1,638 U.S. dollars) to the assisting association for victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese invaders. "I want to help more people," Gao said.

Tomb-sweeping Day, also known as the Qingming Festival, is an important occasion for Chinese to honor their ancestors. It fell on April 5 this year.

The memorial hall received more than 8 million visitors last year, according to official statistics. It looks over advance reservations for visiting via its official website or WeChat account, so as to ease pressure on holidays and improve the visiting experience.

In December 1937, Japanese invaders captured Nanjing, then China's capital, and killed about 300,000 Chinese during a six-week atrocity. Six Nanjing Massacre survivors passed away this year, reducing the number of survivors to 85.

(CGTN)