Shuanggou Massacre Memorial Hall

Shuanggou Massacre Memorial Hall

The Shuanggou Massacre Memorial Hall serves as a patriotic education base.

The Shuanggou Massacre Memorial Hall is situated at the northern end of the ancient town of Shuanggou in the lower reaches of the Huai River. The site includes a public cemetery for the victims of the Shuanggou Massacre, a stele pavilion housing the “Shuanggou Massacre Victims Monument,” and three exhibition rooms that display dozens of photographs illustrating the course of the massacre. The memorial is surrounded by flowers and trees, giving the entire site an atmosphere of solemnity and reverence. Within the cemetery lie the remains of hundreds of Chinese compatriots who were killed by the Japanese invaders, bearing witness to the atrocious crimes committed by Japanese imperialism.

According to statistics, during this catastrophe, the Japanese invaders slaughtered over 550 local residents of Shuanggou, burned down more than 3,800 houses, and raped over 20 women. Twenty-one families in Shuanggou were completely wiped out.

The once bustling ancient town was reduced to ruins, littered with broken walls and strewn with corpses.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, with assistance from the government of Sinan County and local democratic district and township authorities, it took six to seven days to identify over 100 bodies among the dead. The rest had been burned beyond recognition by the fires. The Sinan County Government decided to build a public cemetery in the northern part of Shuanggou Town to bury those victims who could not be identified.

After the liberation, the cemetery was preserved. Every year on Tomb-Sweeping Day and the anniversary of the massacre, the people of Shuanggou would come to pay their respects, tend the graves, and add soil to the mounds. On August 15, 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the Shuanggou Town People’s Government raised funds to construct the “Shuanggou Massacre Memorial Hall,” renovate the victims’ cemetery, and erect a stele pavilion with inscribed stones, so that future generations would remember the lessons of the strong preying on the weak and be inspired to revitalize China.