"Before the invasion, I lived outside of Zhonghuamen, where my mom opened a shop. At that time, we usually put rice in a cave inside the house, and covered it with grass."
This is Liu Xinyuan.
When the Japanese army finally over-ran Nanjing in December of 1937, he was only 7 years old.
He says he remembers the moment his father called in panic, telling the family it needed to take refuge right away with their provisions.
But Liu says they lost their food in the chaos in trying to escape the carnage.
His family was planned to go to a village across the river, but they were unable to cross, instead taking refuge in a factory.
And when they woke up the next day, they found the whole courtyard outside the factory was packed with refugees.
Liu Xinyuan says he remembers the Japanese soldiers rounding up anyone suspected of being a member of the Chinese military.
"The Japanese troops would check the part of their hands between the thumb and the index finger. If the area was callused, then they would assume he was a soldier. Many people were executed because of this."
Liu also recalls that the Japanese soldiers randomly murdering young children.
"One time when we were playing near the doorway of the courtyard, four drunken Japanese soldiers staggered toward us with their long swords. They killed four of the seven kids playing there. I ran away. Later on that night, I was caught by the soldiers. However, my mother managed to free me."
Estimates are that around 300-thousand people were killed by the invading Japanese soldiers in Nanjing over a 6-week period beginning on December 13th, 1937.
