Qiu Xiuying, an 88-year-old survivor of the Nanjing Massacre, died on Tuesday afternoon in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, the Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders said.

Born in 1930, Qiu was hiding in a cellar with four family members when China’s then-capital was captured by the Japanese army in December 1937. Her mother was shot dead, the bullets piercing her shoulder and chest, when she left the cellar one day.

The four remaining family members later hid in the premises of a foreign food-processing company but were found by the Japanese and sent to the Yangtze River for execution. They managed to sneak away from the column of captured Chinese being escorted to the river and avoided execution by hiding in a shed made of straw.

Qiu had been to Japan several times to testify against Japanese right-wingers who rejected the facts of the Nanjing Massacre. Fewer than 90 registered survivors of the massacre are still alive.