China is applying to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to list 11 sets of documents related to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in the Memory of the World Register, said Zhu Chengshan, curator of a memorial hall for victims of the mass murder, on June 11.

On December 13, 1937, the invading Japanese army occupied Nanjing, capital of China, and launched a six-week massacre. Chinese records show more than 300,000 people, including disarmed soldiers and civilians, were murdered.

According to Zhu, who initiated the application, the documents, which include diaries, films, photographs and testimonies, depict the brutality of Japanese invaders in the massacre.

On June 10, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying confirmed that China had applied to UNESCO to list documents relating to the Nanjing Massacre and Japan's wartime sex slaves, also known as "comfort women," on the Memory of the World Register.

Created in 1997 by UNESCO, the register protects heritage documents.

Historians estimate that 200,000 women were forced into sexual servitude by Japanese forces during World War II, most of them from countries invaded by Japan at that time.