Frenchman donates over 600 Japanese war crime photos to China

The Shanghai Songhu Memorial Hall for the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in China on Thursday officially received more than 600 historic photographs documenting the atrocities committed by Japanese invaders during World War II in China.

Donated by Frenchman Marcus Detrez, the photos were taken by his grandfather in Shanghai in the 1930s, including a series of harrowing images which document the wartime atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-1945).

"Because of the pictures, and thanks to these pictures, we now know that [there were] a lot of terrible slaughters," said Detrez.

Detrez introduced that he first discovered the photos back in 2021 while he was cleaning out his grandfather's garage. He first uncovered 170 photos, but in the subsequent sorting, a total of 622 related images were found. Most of these photographs are accompanied by his grandfather's handwritten notes on the back, Detrez explained.

The 26-year-old Frenchman also noted that these photos were taken by his grandfather, who worked for a plantation in the French Concession area of Shanghai in the 1930s. He used his camera to record the Japanese bombing of Shanghai and the massacre of Chinese civilians.

"I was looking for a picture of my grandpa, I went to the garage in my family's home, and I found another box, and the pictures were inside," Detrez said.

After learning about the profound background of these photos, Detrez, accompanied by two friends, arrived in China to donate the historically significant images.

"I think what we're doing here is trying to fill a gap in Western education, because this period of history has never really been talked about in their teaching," said Zhong Haosong, Detrez's friend.

"Absolutely, I felt like history couldn't be hidden like this, so we had to tell the truth to the world," Detrez said.

Now that the Shanghai Songhu Memorial Hall for the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression has received the photographs, professional appraisals will be conducted under the guidance of the National Cultural Heritage Administration and relevant authorities.

Frenchman donates over 600 Japanese war crime photos to China

The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.

The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.

Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.

"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.

Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.

Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.

"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.

Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight