Panjiayu Massacre

The Panjiayu massacre (Chinese: 潘家峪惨案) was a massacre conducted by the Imperial Japanese Army on January 25, 1941 in Panjiayu, Hebei, China.^[1] An estimated 1,298 of the 1,700 people living in Panjiayu were murdered.^[2] This tragedy was an example of the Three Alls Policy by the Japanese army in the Second Sino-Japanese War.^[3] The Chinese government built a memorial hall in that village in 1998.

This massacre was the result of detailed information gathering and analysis conducted by General Yasuji Okamura, who decreed that villages suspected of harboring or abetting the Chinese communist forces were to be completely destroyed as part of creating a buffer no-man's land around areas controlled by Japanese forces. In these "no-man's lands," nothing living, and no available shelters, should exist.

As part of the strategy, the Japanese deliberately attacked and massacred the village on the Chinese New Year's Day of 1941.