Veterans Bank's WWII Exhibit in China

MANILA, Philippines - Filipino heroism in the last world war is on display in China.

The War of our Fathers…A tribute to the Filipino Freedom Fighters, Philippine Veterans Bank’s World War II Exhibit was opened in the Nanjing Massacre Hall, China last April 18 and will run until July 30.

“The exhibit has found its way to all parts of the Philippines. This is the first time it is brought abroad,” Veterans Bank president and CEO Ricardo Balbido Jr. said in his speech during the opening of the traveling exhibit.

“It is quite fitting that the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall is the first foreign venue. It highlights a common historical past when our two peoples suffered a similar fate during the dark period of the Japanese occupation of our country,” he said.

Zhu Chengshan, curator of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, recalled how the 300,000 civilians in Nanjing and 100,000 in Manila were killed by withdrawing Japanese troops during WWII.

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall was built to remind people about the atrocities of war so these will never happen again. 

Zhu welcomed the traveling exhibit to show “that not only China but other countries suffered during World War II” and that “we all have a responsibility to continuously work for peace.”

The PVB Exhibit opened in time for the Chinese traditional festival called Qing Ming when the Chinese commemorate their dead and the Memorial Hall’s number of visitors is at its highest, around 25,000 visitors per day.

The opening rites were led by the deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Nanjing’s Peoples Congress Jin Shi; curator of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre Zhu Chengshan; Carmen Padilla, chair of the UNESCO Culture Committee; and PVB president Balbido.

The Philippine Airlines, Veterans Federation of the Philippines and Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, led by Tessy Ang-See, assisted in the setting up of the exhibit in Nanjing.

The traveling exhibit was invited by the officials of the Nanjing Memorial Hall under the exchange exhibition arrangement. In November 2009, the Nanjing Massacre Exhibition will be brought to Manila. It will be in partnership with the Kaisa-Angelo King Heritage Center in Intramuros, Manila.