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Lest people forget the facts

Updated: 2011-09-20 08:02

By Liu Ce (China Daily)

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Lest people forget the facts

Top: Zhan Hongge at his rented apartment. One of the seven original pictures of war scenes Zhan donated to the September 18 Historical Museum. [Photos Provided to China Daily]

Zhan Hongge, 45, is a special kind of collector.

The one-time businessman and native of Shenyang, Liaoning province, says the turning point of his life came in 1991 when the local government built the September 18 Historical Museum, to remind people of the humiliation of the "Mukden Incident", that marked the start of the Japanese occupation of Northeast China.

"I felt a strong urge to do something to record that period of history," he says. Zhan, who has been a history buff since his teen years, then began collecting everything he could find related to the incident as well as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

Over the past 20 years, he has traveled to more than 100 cities in 27 provinces in search of historical relics and records and donated his collections to museums.

"I'm not after money, I just want to help establish the historical facts. These collections reflect the bitterness of the darkest period of our history," Zhan says.

His small rented apartment is crammed with all manner of old photographs, maps and second-hand books.

Zhan was forced to sell his house after emptying his savings on his collections.

No one, including his family, he says, understands his obsession.

Since 1994, Zhan has donated more than 100 collections to the September 18 Historical Museum. "Historical relics become meaningful only when the public can see them," he says.

Among his donations are seven original pictures of war scenes. "These photos are proof the incident took place and that the Chinese army based in Shenyang resisted the Japanese," the collector says.

Zhan speak proudly of what he calls his "four 100 projects", that is, holding 100 non-profit exhibitions, donating to 100 museums and 100 libraries and interviewing 100 war veterans.

"The oral history as told by these veterans will be published in 2013," he says.

Every year, on Sept 18, a bell is struck in Shenyang at exactly 9:18 pm and an air-raid siren is sounded across the city for three minutes to remember this black day in the nation's history. Zhan's dream is that one day he will be the one to strike the bell.

 

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