Nanjing Massacre survivor Guo Xiulan passes away at 94

Guo Xiulan, a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre, died at home at around 10 am on Wednesday at the age of 94, according to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

To date, only 20 registered survivors remain, the memorial hall said.

Guo was born on Oct 8, 1932. She was only 5 years old when Japanese troops occupied Nanjing in 1937.

In earlier accounts of her experience, she recalled that one morning three Japanese soldiers suddenly arrived. People in the alley fled in all directions. Her parents took her and her three sisters, and they hid together in an air-raid shelter with dozens of neighbors.

The crying of a child drew the attention of the Japanese soldiers. They found the shelter by following the sound, stood at the entrance and fired a machine gun into it.

"After about half an hour, the shelter became quiet. I lay on the ground, not daring to move. The three Japanese soldiers left only after seeing there was no movement," she said.

"It was then that I learned that my parents and youngest sister had been killed by the Japanese troops. My youngest sister died in my mother's arms. My father held my mother in his arms when they died," she recalled.