Descendants of Charles Henry Riggs, who was an American professor at the University of Nanking during the Nanjing Massacre and also an important member of the Nanjing Safety Zone International Committee, paid a visit to the memorial hall in Nanjing, Jiangsu.
On May 29, Nanjing University John Rabe and International Safety Zone Memorial Hall welcomed descendants of Charles Henry Riggs, Steven Hankin, David Hankin, and his great-granddaughter Moriah Lefebvre. The memorial hall reported that they "took a group photo" before the Riggs exhibition board.
They "came to Nanjing this time especially to donate eight sets of precious cultural relics and historical materials, including the blue jade medal awarded to Riggs during his lifetime, to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, providing the public with more opportunities to understand this history."
The memorial hall introduced, "In 1937, on the eve of the Japanese siege of Nanjing city, John Rabe was elected Chairman of the International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone. Rabe, together with a dozen other international committee members, saved the lives of more than 250,000 Chinese people within the Safety Zone, an area that was in his charge and was no larger than four km2. Charles Riggs, an American professor at the University of Nanking at the time, was an important member of the Nanjing Safety Zone International Committee. During the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese forces, he stayed in Nanjing and made a great contribution to protecting and rescuing Chinese refugees."
On May 10, American youth Christ Hankin, the great-grandson of Charles Riggs, also visited the memorial hall with the company of Li Xiaorong, the Chinese co-director of the Johns Hopkins University - Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies. Christ Hankin studied at the Johns Hopkins University - Nanjing University Center in 2023. He also expressed the wish to revisit the hall with his parents, "to experience and feel the traces of life and work left by the predecessors in Nanjing, especially the deep friendship that transcends national boundaries for the sake of world peace and humanitarianism."
