NANJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Inside the Nanjing Museum of the Site of the Lijixiang Comfort Stations in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, a wall of portraits bears the weathered faces of more than 60 survivors of the Japanese army's World War II-era "comfort women" system.

On Friday, that visual record grew as a new batch of artifacts, photographs and video materials documenting the victims' experiences was added to the museum's collection.

The materials were donated mainly by two Chinese photographers after years of documentary work and field investigation.

One of them is Li Xiaofang, a member of the China Photographers Association, who spent more than two decades gathering the stories of survivors of the Japanese military's "comfort women" system. Traveling across China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK), he visited, interviewed and photographed more than 100 survivors.

Li donated more than 200 photographs of over 70 survivors, along with 43 replicas of their handprints. The photographs are now on display at the museum.

The stories behind the images remain vivid in his memory. Li recalled visiting survivor Zhou Fenying on a chilly autumn day. Despite the cold, the elderly woman insisted on taking a bath.

"After escaping from the comfort station, I had to take a bath every day, hoping to wash away the humiliation and pain from my body," Li recalled Zhou telling him.

"It was a psychological trauma she could never erase in her lifetime," Li said.

Another donor, photojournalist Yan Meihua from Xiaogan City in central China's Hubei Province, spent two years documenting the testimony and daily life of Mao Yinmei, a Korea-born survivor.

Yan eventually compiled more than 7,000 photographs and 10 videos, preserving a detailed visual record of Mao's life and experiences.

Born in what is now Jeonbuk State of the ROK, Mao was deceived by the Japanese military in the 1940s and taken to a "comfort station" in Hubei's Wuhan, where she endured inhumane abuse. After Japan's surrender, she fled to Xiaogan and settled there for the rest of her life.

"She often sat alone in silence. Whenever the Japanese were mentioned, her face would turn pale, and she would quietly shed tears," Yan recalled.

"You could truly feel that the harm caused by the atrocities of the Japanese military stayed with her throughout her life, like a shadow that never faded," she said.

Liu Guangjian, a researcher at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, said the newly donated materials will provide a stronger historical basis for future academic research and museum exhibitions.

"Li's more than two decades of field investigation have created a collective portrait of survivors, while Yan's two years of documentation have preserved a precious visual archive of an individual survivor," Liu said.

Affiliated with the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, the museum preserves one of the former "comfort station" sites on the Chinese mainland that have been personally identified by survivors.

According to research, only six registered survivors of the Japanese military's "comfort women" system remain alive on the Chinese mainland.