Panjiayu Massacre

The Panjiayu Massacre(Chinese: 潘家峪惨案) was a massacre of villagers carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War in Panjiayu Village, Fengrun County (now Fengrun District, Tangshan), Hebei Province, China. Since July 1938, the Eastern Hebei Anti-Japanese Base Area had used Panjiayu Village as a base for anti-Japanese resistance, with important institutions such as the Eastern Hebei Special Administrative Office and the Eastern Hebei Military District Headquarters stationed there. By 1941, villagers had cooperated with the Eighth Route Army to repel multiple Japanese "village-clearing" operations. In the second half of 1940, the Japanese army implemented the “Three Alls” (kill all, burn all, loot all) policy in North China. The Chinese government built a memorial hall in that village in 1998. On 24 January 1941, while the Eastern Hebei Military District was participating in the Hundred Regiments Offensive, the Japanese forces stationed in Tangshan, together with collaborators from the puppet government, planned a massacre targeting Panjiayu Village.

In the early hours of 25 January, Japanese and puppet troops surrounded Panjiayu Village. At dawn, villagers were driven into the West Ditch and then into the Panjia Compound within the village, where a bloody massacre ensued. Approximately 1,230 villagers were killed, with only 276 surviving. This massacre was the first large-scale atrocity carried out under the Japanese "Three Alls" policy. On 5 February, the Eastern Hebei Military District held a public funeral, burying the victims in four large graves west of the village. Surviving young villagers were organized into three youth revenge squads, later consolidated into the Panjiayu Revenge Corps in early May. On 18 July 1942, the Revenge Corps participated in the Ganhecao ambush, killing the primary perpetrator, Sasaki Jirō. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, a memorial and museum were built at the massacre site, and the local villagers erected an ancestral hall for the victims. In 2001, the Panjiayu Massacre Site was designated a national patriotic education base, and in 2006 it was listed as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level.