(This chapter is not very good, and it is reprinted in a lot of content, but it is just a record of what Minnie Weitling did after the fall of Nanjing!) ）

Minnie Weitling, a Chinese famous Hua Qun, is an American missionary.

She came to China in 1912 and served as the principal of Sanqing Girls' Middle School in Hefei, Anhui Province, and learned that Chinese women were the least educated and suffered the most, so she decided to devote herself to the cause of women's education in China. Weitling also chose a Chinese name for herself, "Hua Qun".

In 1919, she was hired by Jinling Women's University to serve as the head of the Department of Education and the director of teaching. In a letter to a friend in New York, Weitling said that when she first arrived in Nanjing, "I really didn't seem used to hearing the New York subway and the Chicago elevated train." I'd rather have this tame rickshaw replace them, though. You don't know how good it is to come here in Nanjing."

She pioneered the teacher education course and teaching practice of Jinnu University, and later opened the affiliated experimental middle school, which laid the foundation for cultivating outstanding secondary education talents. In her spare time, she often visits her neighbors, and in order to relieve some of the neighbors' suffering, she sets up a music club near the school, Yishi Home Economics School, and carries out social welfare work, and she leads students to serve in their spare time. When Weitling learned that there were more than 100 poor children in the vicinity of the Golden Women's University who could not go to school, he launched a fundraiser among the teachers and students of the school, and used the money raised to buy a plot of land near the school and set up a small school with two classrooms, a reading room and a small cafeteria.

In the autumn of 1924, the school was officially opened for children from poor families in the neighborhood. The students' tuition fees are also paid by the YWCA of Golden Women's University.

Beginning on August 12, 1937, she insisted on writing her diary almost every day, and regularly mailed it to her American friends every month so that they could better understand current affairs in China.

On the night of November 11, 1937, Shanghai completely fell, and the army rushed to Nanjing in three ways. In the places where they passed, they were taken, plundered, burned, and killed.

After the "13 August" incident in Shanghai, the Kuomintang took the political axe for safety reasons and explicitly ordered: "Universities in the war zone will be approached to plan another way to open their schools." "Nanjing Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences is located in the center of Nanjing, and President Wu Yifang and her colleagues decided after deliberation that the faculty and staff at the university will be divided into two parts: one will move west to run the school, and the other will stay in the school headquarters to protect the school property and provide relief to refugees. The faculty and staff who stayed at the university formed a resident maintenance committee, and Ms. Hua Qun, an American professor, was elected as the director.

At that time, the vast majority of foreigners in Nanjing had fled, and the remaining 10 or 20 foreigners came forward to organize the "International Committee of the Nanjing Safety Zone." With the support of China's political axe, an international security zone of about 4 square kilometers has been set up, from Jinling University and Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences to Gulou and Xinjiekou.

In order to manage and care for the needs of the military and civilians in the security zone, she later asked the Shanghai International Red Cross Society and the Red Cross Society of China to recognize and set up the "Nanjing Committee of the International Red Cross", of which Hua Qun was a member, and the Golden Women's Home was designated by the International Committee as a special shelter for women and children in the security zone, and Ms. Hua Qun took on the arduous task of preventing the rape of Chinese women by the Japanese army. Ms. Hua was ordered to be in danger and did not dare to delay.

On the morning of December 13, after the first batch of troops entered the city from Zhonghua Gate, they plundered and burned everywhere. At this time, women and children flocked to the refugee shelter in the Golden Women's Hospital. There were young women dressed as old women, women dressed as men, old women, children, and men, all terrified.

Ms. Hua guarded the gate and persuaded the men and old women to go home in order to protect some young women and children.

The refugees cried and begged if they could have a foothold on the lawn. Protecting the lives of tens of thousands of women and children was not easy to say in the special environment at that time!

Ms. Hua was confronted by a group of invading soldiers who were more ferocious than wild beasts, and they did not have any binding effect on them because of the signs of American church schools and the proclamation of the International Security Zone. After the army entered the city, at least 10 to 20 groups of soldiers went to the Golden Women's Courtyard every day to arrest people, forcibly annihilate women, and rob money.

Not only did they force their way in through the school's gate and side doors, but they also climbed over the fence to enter the school, and even climbed over the school's low fence at night.

Ms. Hua Qun organized faculty and staff to patrol the campus, and invited foreign men who served in the "International Safety Zone" to take turns to keep vigil. She herself worked hard all night, either guarding the gatehouse or being called to stop the soldiers who had come to the school to destroy and recapture the Chinese women from them.

She couldn't eat a meal that she had settled in all day, and she couldn't get a good night's sleep. Many of the soldiers were enraged and threatened her with bloodstained bayonets; Others brutally slapped her. Ms. Hua endured it all, she consciously took on the heavy responsibility of protecting more than 10,000 Chinese women and children, she said, "The Golden Women's Courtyard is my home, and I will never leave her."

In refugee camps, many refugees have lost their loved ones, and the pain of life and death hangs over the camps.

Ms. Hua comforted and encouraged them, giving them the confidence to win and the courage to live, she said, "China has not died, China will not die, and it is said that it will fail." ”

At the same time, she searches for lost relatives for refugees. Every morning, she sends her staff to register among the refugees, write down the names of the separated people, and then she forwards them to the International Committee of the Safe Zone or to the Embassy, urging them to try to find them.

On December 1, the U.S. Embassy summoned all the few U.S. citizens still stranded in Nanjing for the last time and warned them: "If we don't evacuate, we won't be able to guarantee your lives in the future." ”

Once again, Weitling said firmly: "I can't leave China behind at this time!" ”

She then signed her name on the certificate presented by the embassy that she would "never leave the peace." This was the fourth time she had solemnly rejected the U.S. Embassy's request to leave Nanjing.

After the Yue army invaded the city of Nanjing, Weitling, who had been living in a peaceful environment and working in a school, witnessed the heinous atrocities of the Yue army for the first time, and was shocked and angry.

On December 16, she wrote:

"A car carrying 8-10 women passed us tonight. As the car drove by, they shouted 'help, help'. The occasional sound of gunfire in the streets and down the hill made me realize that there were yet another people who had suffered the tragic fate of being shot, and that it was most likely that they were not soldiers. ”

Although the American flag and the announcement of the embassy were hung at the entrance of the Jinnu University, it had no effect on the officers and soldiers who were in a rage. Every day, groups of soldiers forcibly entered the school through the school gate or climbed over the fence to enter the school. Weitling stood guard at the gate for a while, stopping and reprimanding the Yue soldiers who tried to force their way into the school, and then rushed to other parts of the school to drive away the Yue soldiers who had stolen into the wall.

As she wrote in her account of December 16:

"Most of the day, I was like a guard at the front door or called in to deal with other problems — running to other parts of the school to deal with the influx of soldiers entering the campus."

There are many nights when she sleeps in her clothes so that she can get up at any time to deal with emergencies. She also organized patrols to guard the campus at night to keep the refugees safe. As an important witness to the Nanjing Massacre, Weitling wrote in her account:

"Those of us who believe that war is a national crime, a sin that violates the spirit of creation in the depths of the hearts of all things in heaven and earth, but we can dedicate our strength to those innocent victims, and to those whose families have been burned and robbed, or those who have been injured by artillery and planes in times of war, to help them recover."

Once, she saw a little Chinese boy wearing his own armband to deliver food to his sister who lived in Jinnuda, so she stepped forward and said to the child: "You don't have to wear the sun flag, you are Chinese, your country has not died!" You have to remember the year and month you wore this thing, and you should never forget! ”

As she spoke, she helped the boy remove the armband. She wrote: "From a military point of view, the occupation of Nanking may be regarded as a victory for the Yue army, but from a moral point of view, it is a defeat and a disgrace to the people!" ”