Date of letter:Not mentioned
Address of author:Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province
Date of event:1937
Location of event:Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province
Name of author:Zhou Weiyi
Name(s) of victim(s):Zhou Yinting (Zhou Weiyi’s father), Zhou Guichu (shop assistant)
Type of atrocity:Air Bombings, Slave Laborers, Murders, Others（AB, SL, MU, OT）
Other details:In 1937, the Japanese soldiers bombed Wuxi City. My father’s sauce store was bombed. Zhou Guichu and Shao Laoliu, the assistants in the store, were caught to do hard labor in the course of fleeing. Later they were shot dead by the Japanese soldiers. The proof is enclosed.
Evidence About Zhou Guichu Being Shot By the Japanese Army
I am Zhou Weiyi and my father was Zhou Yinting. He ran a hotel called Quanchang Nanhaojiang Hotel in Longtou, Huishan, Wuxi before the anti-Japanese war. The hotel was bombed days before the Japanese army invaded Wuxi in 1937. As Japanese planes heavily bombed Wuxi in September and October 1937, Zhou Guichu, an employee of my father’s hotel (his monthly salary was about 10 silver coins at that time) and his colleague Tai Laoliu fled to Tai’s hometown Jurong County. On the way, he was captured by the Japanese army to be a forced laborer and then shot in Xiashu. We lost his whereabouts at that time and later learned from his colleague that he was indeed shot to death by the Japanese army in lunar October 1937.
Witness: Owner of Quanchang Nanhaojiang Hotel where Zhou Guichu worked Zhou Yinting’s son Zhou Weiyi (Personal seal)
Current address: Room 201, No. 85, Sheng’an’ercun,
Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
About Zhou Guichu Being Shot to Death by the Invading Japanese Army
Zhou Guichu, born in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China, was 21 when Japan invaded China. He worked in Quanchang Nanhaojiang Hotel for 7 years (from when he was 14 to 21) with a monthly salary of about 10 silver coins (1 Yuan Shikai Silver coin weighed about 30g). He was an honest man.
On lunar October 22, 1937, three days before the Japanese army invaded Wuxi, Zhou Guichu and his colleague Tai Laoliu fled to Tai’s hometown Jurong County, Jiangsu as Japanese planes often bombed Huishan, Wuxi. Unexpectedly, the Japanese army continued to march towards Nanjing and passed Tai’s hometown in Jurong County. They robbed farmers of cattle and captured some people to drive cattle, including Zhou Guichu. They walked behind the Japanese soldiers and would be beaten if they were slowing down the army. When they reached Xiashu in the night, Zhou Guichu was so weak that he fell down on the ground. He was escorted before the Japanese who shot him on the site. Months later, several men who were also captured and witnessed the incident returned to Wuxi and talked about it. Zhou Guichu’s corpse was never found. So, an empty tomb was built in the 1980s by Zhou Guichu’s former colleague and witness, briefly describing his death so that his family members and offspring would knew that he was killed by the invading Japanese army.
Former colleague and witness Xu Fuchang (Personal seal)
No. 18, Xiahetang, Huishan, Wuxi, Jiangsu
