Relatives of a Danish man who helped prevent 6,000 Chinese civilians from being brutally slaughtered by invading Japanese troops during the notorious 1937 Nanjing Massacre are visiting the city.

Bernhard Alp Sindberg sheltered people at Jingnan Cement Factory in Qixia Mountain in east Nanjing where he was manager.

His relatives were invited to the city by Nanjing municipal government to commemorate the 95th anniversary of his birth.

During their visit, which ends tomorrow, they've toured the factory and met those he helped protect.

"Without his help we'd no chance of living," said Wang Yongli, an 82-year-old who stayed in Sinberg's factory for 100 days as a teenager. "We hope the kindness of people like Sindberg will live on and that there'll never be another war," she said. 

Wang recalled that whenever Japanese troops assembled to break into the factory, Sindberg would run to the gate and wave the Danish national flag to ward them off. Denmark was not at war with Japan. .

In addition to providing shelter to the local residents, Sindberg also risked his life every day by venturing outside to bring back medical supplies from the Red Cross to treat the injured in the factory, said Wang.

On hearing the accounts of local residents, Sindberg's sister, Betrian Alp Andersen, said she was touched that so many Nanjing residents still remembered her brother so clearly.

She said she'd brought the younger generation of the family on the trip "to let them learn about their ancestor and remember this part of history."

The family brought with them from Denmark seeds of a commemorative yellow rose called the "Nanjing Forever Sindberg Rose". 

"This kind of rose grows with nobility and bravery and carries our memories of those whose lives were lost in the war and our hope for justice," said Andersen.

According to Zhu Chengshan, curator of the Nanjing Memorial Hall of Compatriots Murdered in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, a number of the seeds will be planted in the grounds of the Hall. 

Sindberg's relatives also presented the Hall with a silk cloth which was inscribed with messages of thanks from residents to Sindberg when he was forced by Japanese troops to leave Nanjing in March 1938.

"That piece of silk was the only thing passed down to us by Bernhard on his death. But I think it's more meaningful if it stays in the Hall," said Marian Stenvig Andersen, his niece.

Sindberg wrote a series of eyewitness reports about his experiences in China in the late 1930s. They are now exhibited in Yale University in the United States and considered valuable in the study of the war crime, said Gao Zuxing, an expert in war studies at Nanjing Normal University. More than 300,000 Chinese died in the Nanjing Massacre.

Sindberg's written accounts provided further evidence of the atrocities carried out by Japanese troops. They were published in the Danish press in 2003.

One of Sindberg's reports, among those found in a Danish public library, was quoted as saying: "Blood, blood, everywhere here was drenched in blood."

German John Rabe was also instrumental in saving the lives of people in Nanjing. Between 1931 and 1938 he was in the city.

His house was a refugee camp at the time of the massacre. Rabe also kept diaries recording more than 500 atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders. They are used today as important evidence of the Nanjing Massacre.

(China Daily April 27, 2006)