On July 16, twenty young student actors involved in the original play Life visited the Memorial Hall for an immersive historical study program. Set against the backdrop of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, the play follows the life-and-death ordeals of the young siblings Wang Zhong and Wang Hua, the humanitarian rescue efforts of international friend John Rabe, and the transmission of memory across time and space, illuminating the goodness of humanity and the resilience of life amid desperate circumstances.

Xie Jingwen, a student at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a descendant of the late Nanjing Massacre survivor Liu Yongxing, participated in the activity as a member of the Life production team. She joined Ge Fengjin, an inheritor of historical memories of the Nanjing Massacre, for an on-stage discussion. Drawing on their respective family experiences, the two descendants of survivors shared their reflections on carrying historical memory forward, deeply moving the young people in attendance.

In 1937, Liu Yongxing, then a 24-year-old tailor, and his younger brother were taken by Japanese soldiers to the riverbank at Xiaguan, where they were subjected to a mass killing. Liu narrowly survived, but his brother was killed.

Having heard about her family’s suffering since childhood, Xie Jingwen volunteered to join the play’s outreach team. She said, “The immersive form of the play has brought me closer to 1937. I can now feel much more deeply the suffering endured by my great-grandfather and all the residents of Nanjing at that time.”