A ceremony was held Thursday (July 6) to mark the publication of a new book on Chinese prisoners of war (POWs) in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against the Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).

Published just before the 69th anniversary of the "July 7 Incident" that triggered off the war, the book includes nearly 200 pictures which are selected from over 200,000 pictures collected by the author, Fan Jianchuan.

Fan had gone to Japan and managed to glean almost 2,000 photo albums about the war. "The most expensive one cost me over 70,000 yuan (about 8,750 U.S. dollars)," he said at the ceremony in the Memorial Hall of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against the Japanese Aggression.

During the war, lots of Chinese soldiers and civilians became POWs after they ran out of food and ammunition supplies, and they suffered greatly, said Wang Xinhua, director of the memorial hall.

Fan has been making efforts to build a number of Anti-Japanese War memorial museums on his own resources. So far, five of them have been completed and are open to visitors. Three others will be completed within this year.

Editor: Wing