Zhang Cuiying, a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre, died on Monday age 87, according to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

Zhang was born on Dec 18, 1930, in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. She was 7 years old when Japanese soldiers invaded the city in 1937.

She hid in a reed marsh with her parents for more than a month to avoid the Japanese army. For fear of being recognized as a girl by the Japanese army, she cut her hair, and her mother put ash from the bottom of a pan on her face.

“The ditch of reeds was blood red at the riverside at that time, with a lot of corpses drifting on the surface of the river,” Zhang recalled in interviews. She said she and her family ate tree roots and reeds every day while hiding in the marsh.

Wang Kan contributed to this story