Male, 9, a third-grade student at Beijing Shunchenggen Elementary School. From: Beijing.
On June 3, 1989, at around midnight, Lü was shot in the chest by martial law troops near Fuxingmen overpass. He died on the spot. His body was lifted up and marched by the crowds to protest the indiscriminate killing of innocents. Lü is the youngest known victim of the June Fourth Massacre to date. Because both his parents were both among the educated youth who had been sent down to the countryside, Lü was being cared for by his maternal grandmother.
吕
鹏
When I arrived at Deshengmen by bike, I saw the most horrific scene in my entire life: a group of people with tears streaming down their faces were lifting up the body of a child. That child could not have been more than ten years of age—so small and yet his body filled with so many bullet holes as he lay lifeless on that old, broken plank. The sun shone mercilessly on his little face, pale and wretched, and that perplexed look on his small face felt to me like a colossal indictment. When those people carried him, it seemed they were carrying a hope that was shot dead, and that dashed hope was giving way to boundless despair. This pitiful hope that was destroyed by the guns of murderers was finally placed quietly before a column of military vehicles. When they saw this, the soldiers in the military vehicles all lowered their heads in shame. The people cried, and then they voiced their anger. I cried, but was no longer able to feel anger. I didn’t know what the meaning of life is if there is no dignity? In these fifteen years, this scene has remained etched in my mind, and I haven’t been able to dispel it. I kept thinking: when those bullets hit him, what was it exactly that struck at the chest of a people, and what was it exactly that struck at the heart of Chinese history?
