A statue of a Danish citizen who is credited with saving thousands of people in China during the Japanese invasion that led to the Nanjing Massacre was unveiled by Denmark’s queen on Saturday.
Queen Margrethe II revealed the 3m bronze statue of Bernhard Arp Sindberg at a park in Aarhus, the city where he was born in 1911.
Designed by Chinese and Danish artists, the statue was a gift from the city of Nanjing, which was the Chinese capital at the time of the massacre in December 1937 and January 1938.
Photo: AP
Chinese authorities have said Sindberg’s actions saved up to 20,000 people — Danish historians gave an estimate of 6,000 to10,000 — during the six-week rampage by Japanese forces.
About 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers are estimated to have been killed during the massacre.
“In Nanjing, everyone knows Sindberg. China is a very large country, so of course there are Chinese who do not know Sindberg, but most do,” academic Yinquan Wang, part of a 40-strong Chinese delegation that attended Saturday’s unveiling, told Danish newspaper Aarhus Stiftstidende.
Sindberg, an adventurer who served with the French Foreign Legion in the early 1930s, ended up in China as a stowaway on a Danish merchant vessel.
He got a job in Nanjing working as a security guard for a Danish cement company days before the Japanese invasion.
One of the few foreigners in the city, he turned the factory into a makeshift refugee camp, hospital and shelter for Chinese during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which lasted from July 1937 until September 1945.
To keep the Japanese troops away from the site, Sindberg flew a Danish flag outside to deter soldiers, as the Japanese Empire considered Denmark a friend.
Pressured by Japanese authorities, Sindberg returned to Shanghai and left China in early 1938. He later moved to the US, where he served as a captain with the US Merchant Marine and died in California in 1983.
Sindberg “is a reminder that a single person can make a difference,” Margrethe said.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS