While people across the country were commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre on December 13, Zhu Chengshan, director of the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, had something more important to worry about.

"It is of great importance to inscribe the Nanjing Massacre archives as part of the global heritage. It is a vivid history textbook for the Japanese, the Chinese and people all across the world. It reminds us to remember history and cherish peace," Zhu said.

Having been the director of the memorial hall for more than a decade, Zhu has a long-held wish that during his tenure, the Nanjing Massacre archives would be included into the UNESCO Memory of the World project.

Memory of the World, launched by UNESCO in 1992, seeks to safeguard the deteriorating, damaging and disappearing documentary heritage. A total of seven archives in China have been inscribed on the Memory of the World list so far.

Since local media revealed the Nanjing government was seeking to have the Nanjing Massacre archives included, his phone has been ringing off the hook with anxious journalists, requesting more information on how the application is proceeding.

However Zhu knew clearly there was still a long painstaking way to go.

"There are too many applicants, and the Nanjing Massacre was related to political factors, which makes it more complicated," Guo Biqiang, a researcher of the Second Historical Archives of China, told the Global Times.

Pooling best data

On August 13, the Nanjing government announced a working group whose aim would be to have the Nanjing Massacre archives listed as part of the Memory of the World.

It also revealed the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, Nanjing City Bureau of Archives and the Second Historical Archives of China would work together to provide archives to apply for the Memory of the World status.

Five archives from the three institutions that included photos, diaries and films taken between 1937 and 1948 were selected as part of the application.

These included a collection of 16 photos recording atrocities by Japanese troops, diaries written by Cheng Ruifang, a victim of the Nanjing Massacre, records of a trial of Japanese war criminals by a local military court, a group of complaint letters written by Nanjing victims and collected by the local government and a film shot by an American priest during the Massacre. 

"The five archives, especially the film that was shot by a third-party witness, will make the evidence more objective and authoritative," Guo Biqiang said.

The local authority revealed nothing more on the details or status of the application and refused to be interviewed when contacted by the Global Times. How much the application costs also remains unknown.

Guo, who participated in the preparation of the application, revealed the five archives have been sent to the State Archives Administration of China (SAAC), which was entrusted to manage the application of the UNESCO Memory of the World in China.

Applicants are only considered as candidates for the Memory of the World once they are recognized and recommended by the SAAC, according to UNESCO regulations.

"We have received the materials, but we have not come to a final decision on whether or not to recommend it to UNESCO," an official from SAAC who only gave his surname as Zhang told the Global Times.

Longstanding dream

Concerning the status of the application, Zhu was anxious and was keen not to overly elaborate on the topic due to the pressure he is under. 

A journalist from Nanjing-based Modern Express told the Global Times that Zhu was angered when she reported news about the Memory of the World application, saying "attracting high attention would give him much pressure."

Zhu and the local authority have been maneuvering for a long time to see the Nanjing Massacre included on the Memory of the World list.

In 2004, an expansion project took place in the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, aiming to lay the foundation for the application. The memorial hall was expanded from covering an area of 2.2 hectares in 2004 to 7.4 hectares. Any site wishing to be considered as a world culture heritage site should at least cover an area of 5.33 hectares.

"The hardware and the facilities have been greatly improved, and we thought the time was right to apply for the Memory of the World project," Zhu told Modern Express.

Officials from the UNESCO International Council on Monuments and Sites who visited the memorial hall in 2008 also suggested at the time that an application should be lodged.

Headed by Zhu Chengshan, 10 deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC) in Nanjing submitted a proposal to the NPC in January 2009, calling for the memorial hall's archives to be included in the Memory of the World list.

In April 2009, experts on cultural relics and the Nanjing Massacre were invited to participate in a seminar and decided the memorial hall, Nanjing archive bureau and the Second Historical Archives of China should be united and cooperate to apply jointly.

Guo also revealed that the archives were inscribed as an "Archive Heritage List of China" in 2009 which added weight to their consideration as a place of global heritage importance.

"As one of the massacres that happened during WWII, the Nanjing Massacre should also be included as world heritage site," Guo said.

Two other massacres, including the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, were already inscribed as World Heritage Sites, Zhu said.

Face history fully

Survivors of the Nanjing atrocities believe it is particularly important to apply for this heralded status, given the elements in Japan that continue to dodge or outright deny the events of the Nanjing Massacre.

Nanjing Massacre victim Yu Xiangchang said he would be relieved if the Nanjing Massacre was added to the Memory of the World list.

"The memories of the slaughter will never wear off. I hope the Japanese can face history correctly," 86-year-old Yu, whose family was ransacked and whose father was killed by the Japanese troops in the massacre, told the Global Times.

Yu now lives a peaceful life with his wife in the west of Nanjing. He has spent a lot of time with his wife lately as he was scheduled to leave Nanjing for Japan to attend a testimony rally in commemoration of the event. 

Experts welcomed the application. "Some Japanese have even sought to explain away the country's aggression. Applying for Memory of the World could be taken as a forceful response to right-wing forces in Japan who deny and whitewash Japan's history of aggression," said Da Zhigang, an expert on Japanese issues from the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

"The Nanjing Massacre should be on the Memory of the World list, just as the Hiroshima memorial hall for the atomic bomb victims in Japan was already on the list," Yamauchi Masano, director of a NGO dedicated to studying the impact of gas bombings Japan used during the World War II, told the Global Times. He said he felt sorry that Japan had never fully apologized for the Nanjing Massacre.

Yamauchi has spent most of his life collecting money to compensate Chinese victims who suffered from gas bombs during the period of Japanese aggression.

Due to historical reasons, subsequent Japanese governments since the war have failed to squarely face history and admit the country's guilt for committing the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, estimated to have killed 300,000 Chinese citizens in Jiangsu Province, in World War II.

This attitude toward the Nanjing Massacre has often triggered sensitive times between the Chinese and the Japanese and caused a negative impact on relations between the two nations.

History textbooks released by the Japanese government in March last year denied the Nanjing Massacre and its invasion on China, which aroused fierce objections from the Chinese.

Triggered by the 75th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, many people on Sina Weibo called for the Japanese to face history correctly and prevent further conflicts.

To build momentum for the application, local experts worked speedily to collect historical materials and make publications to make incontrovertible proof of the Nanjing Massacre, as well as putting pressure on Japan to revise its attitude towards the tragedy. These efforts have been intensified in the final run-up to the anniversary.

Several books relating to the Nanjing Massacre were released ahead of the anniversary, including The Nanking Massacre: A Complete History published on December 6, which is considered to be the most complete original work on the event.

"The book gave us a rational and truthful outlook at the atrocities," Zhang Xianwen, historian from Nanjing University and the book's chief editor, told the Global Times.

In the past decade, Zhang headed a team of more than 100 experts to collect materials and do interviews to give a full account of the massacre across three volumes. The book is being translated into English and Japanese for upcoming publication.

In addition, a 2 million-character dictionary with more than 8,000 entries on the event is under compilation and set to be published by the end of 2014. Preservation work for the first group of survivors' oral history is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013.