Chongqing Anti-Japanese War Education Museum

Chongqing Anti-Japanese War Education Museum

During the Anti-Japanese War, Chongqing became China’s wartime capital. Schools from occupied areas relocated westward en masse, bringing together elites from the education and cultural sectors and hundreds of thousands of students to the mountain city. There were over 200 schools—national, provincial, municipal, county, private, and missionary. In 2005, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War and the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, preserve the valuable legacy of China’s wartime education, and promote historical awareness, the National Institute of Educational Sciences and the Shapingba District Government of Chongqing jointly established the Chongqing Anti-Japanese War Education Museum on the former site of the Sichuan Provincial Education College.

The Chongqing Anti-Japanese War Education Museum consists of two preserved wartime buildings: the exhibition hall and the administrative area. The exhibition hall features the “Chronicles of Wartime Education,” a display developed through research by the Hongyan Cultural Route. The exhibition is divided into three sections: “National Crisis and Humanitarian Catastrophe,” “National Education for Survival,” and “Shaci Education as the Pillar of the Nation.” Through a wealth of photographs, artifacts, and historical documents, the exhibit reflects the arduous struggle of national education in China during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the dynamic historical forces behind the flourishing “Shaci Cultural Zone” of wartime Chongqing, the provisional capital.

Source: Chongqing Hongyan Cultural Route Management Center Author: Liu Liqun