Date of letter:1993-03-17
Address of author:Rong County, Zigong City, Sichuan Province
Date of event:1939-09-11 to 1940-08-12
Location of event:Lu County, Luzhou City, Sichuan Province
Name of author:Li Lilin
Name(s) of victim(s):Li Lilin’s grandfather
Type of atrocity:Air Bombings, Others（AB, OT）
Other details:On September 11, 1939, 18 Japanese heavy bombers entered the city’s airspace, launched intensive bombing attack and raked the city with machine gun fire. My grandfather was swallowed by flames and the whole family shop was burnt to ashes. My father angrily fell into illness and died less than two years later.
Mr. Tong Zeng:
On February 14 I wrote a letter to you, have you received it? I received no reply ever since. At that time due to inadequate materials, the dates were not clear enough, and now they have been clarified, I again re-wrote the “Claim to Demand Damage Compensation from Japan”, in case of any improper places, please point them out, I look forward to receiving your reply and strengthen our contact.
Regards
Yours faithfully!
Li Lilin
Rong County, Sichuan
1993.3.17
Attached: The letter on February 14, 1993 and the first draft of “Claim for Damage Compensation from Japan” written on February 13 each.
Claim to Demand Damage Compensation from Japan
In 1932 I was born into a middle class family with a 500 sqm szu-ho-yuan (four-section compound) in Sandaoguai, Lu County, Sichuan (today’s Luzhou City), at that time there were 11 people in my family (grandparents, parents, 5 sisters and brothers, and 2 servants). My grandfather is named Li Binru, father Shaobin and uncle Xiang Chunfu jointly operated piece goods business “Shou He Business Firm” at Dazhizi Street in the downtown district of the city, which enjoyed certain reputation in the local business circle, with 500,000 silver dollars of capital, my family’s stock accounted for about one tenth. The business was very brisk, the whole family lived and worked in peace and contentment.
At the start of Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese fascists bombed Luzhou up to six times, in which the one that caused the most serious damage is two bombings on September 11, 1939 and August 12, 1940. Luzhou people called it “September 11 Tragedy” and “August 12 Ningguang Gate Tragedy”
In the “September 11 Tragedy”, central and north towns were nearly annihilated, several thousand households became destitute and homeless.
At 9:30, September 11, 1939, 18 Japanese heavy bomber suddenly and quickly entered the sky of our city, and frenetically shot innocent residents and dropped bombs in high concentration, the aircrafts repeated this attack to and fro three times, which lasted 30 minutes, during the process several dozen large and medium-sized bombs were dropped, shooting by machine gun never stopped, what’s more barbarian is the mixed dropping of fire bombs, in an instant, the East Gate and the West Gate both caught fire, the flame soared into the sky, smoke and dust penetrated the whole city in astounding momentum. Residuals of the flame sustained for one week, almost no bricks, tiles and stone wares remained intact, and those who were slow to flee the city and died in the shooting or engulfed in flames were not few in number. This is a debt of blood owed by the Japanese Fascist toward people in Luzhou.
My grandfather guarded the home and lost life in fire, when father and others returned from countryside, the whole family compound and the firm had already been reduced to dust. Seeing the disastrous consequences, my parents fainted on the spot, after rescue and persuasion, they collected grandfather’s body and returned to the countryside empty-handed, and borrowed several empty rooms from my mother’s brother to find shelter. The firm also sustained similar disastrous loss, the remaining slow-selling merchandises and working capital was less than 30000 silver dollars, it was bankrupt and closed. My father became unemployed and anger triggered illness, in less than two years, a healthy-bodied and ambitious-minded youth indignantly passed away, at the age of only 32. Owing to poverty, our life was difficult, subsequently two younger sisters died due to illness, the remaining siblings also had no money to go to school to receive education, which left far-reaching negative impact on future work and business startup.
The Japanese imperialist invaders brought tremendous economic loss and heavy mental trauma to my family, we must settle this debt of blood, and obtain deserved humanitarian compensation.
For this reason, I demand the Japanese Government to compensate economic subsidy USD 100000.
Victim
Li Lilin Signature
Citizen of Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, the People’s Republic of China
February 13, 1993
