(FILE)

Song Jinhe, a retiree in Jiamusi, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has long been committed to educating the public about war crimes Japanese troops committed in China during World War II. Over the past five decades, he has collected 10,000 documents, photographs, letters and other historical materials detailing the cruelty of the Japanese invasion in the 1930s-40s.

The letters written by Japanese soldiers provide chilling firsthand accounts of the brutalities of war. Song has also obtained a secret military order showing that the September 18 Incident—a 1931 rail bombing that Japan used to justify its invasion of northeast China—was premeditated and carefully planned, and was not an act of Chinese sabotage as claimed by the Japanese military.

All this evidence serves as a rebuttal to the Japanese political right wing's denials that the Japanese Imperial Army committed widespread atrocities in China. Song's exhibition has attracted more than 60,000 visitors since it opened on August 15, 2009.