A National Memorial Day is a day designated by a national government and observed among the majority of the populace to commemorate the past calamities in the country.
After the Second World War, the governments of the main warring states issued dates in succession to hold public memorial ceremonies for the victims in massacres during the war for strengthening contemporaries’ memory of the sufferings in the disastrous years.
Each year national memorial ceremonies are held for massacre victims at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, for Pearl Harbor attack in US, for the Great Patriotic War in Russia, and for atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, etc.
A bill was passed by a unanimous vote at the Seventh Session of the Twelfth National People’s Congress Standing Committee of the People’s Republic of China. That is to set 13 December as the National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims.