Bernhard Arp Sindberg (FILE)

Bernhard Arp Sindberg was born in Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city, on February 19, 1911 and died in California, USA, in 1983.

He was just 26 years old when he went to China seeking adventure, and eventually found a job as a watchman at the Jiangnan Cement Factory, run by a Danish firm. His arrival coincided with the Japanese invasion of Nanjing in December 1937, making him a witness to extraordinary brutality perpetrated against unarmed soldiers and civilians.

In 107 days during the bitter winter of 1937 and 1938, along with a German colleague Karl Gunther, Sindberg established a make-shift camp for Chinese civilians inside the cement plant, ran a small field-hospital for the wounded and tried to provided food and other supplies to the refugees. It is believed these helped to save the lives of up to 20,000 Chinese.

Sindberg's name and actions in Nanjing were rediscovered when the diaries of John Rabe, a German who helped rescue many Chinese in Nanjing during the Massacre, were published in 1997, in which Sindberg's name was  mentioned several times.

(Source: China Daily)