Martyr's Cemetary & Memorial

Shanghai


This park marks the site of an old Kuomintang prison, where 800 communists, intellectuals and political agitators were executed between 1928 and 1937. A modern, lamplit tunnel leads to the original jailhouses and the small execution ground. Scattered throughout the manicured lawns are enormous socialist-realist sculptures of workers and soldiers. During WWII this area was a Japanese internment camp and airfield, as depicted in the JG Ballard novel and Spielberg film Empire of the Sun.