BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- By founding John Rabe Communication Centers around the globe, German reproductive endocrinologist Thomas Rabe, John's grandson, holds tight the torch of his family legacy that goes back to war-ridden China in the first half of the 20th century.
"Grandpa died before I was born, but his stories have a great impact on me," Thomas Rabe said. "A special bond with China all along."
The 68-year-old professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Heidelberg University Hospital came to China earlier this month to attend the opening ceremony of the John Rabe Communication Center in Beijing.
An exhibition on John Rabe was concurrently held at the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in the city, recasting 30 years of life experience of the German businessman in China, who helped protect Chinese citizens during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.
Regarded as the "Oskar Schindler of China," John Rabe, a Hamburg-born business representative of Siemens who came to China in 1908 at 26, set up a security zone in Nanjing with a few remaining foreigners there in 1937.
He saved tens of thousands of lives before returning to Germany one year later, taking with him a 22-volume diary, of which 10 volumes recorded the atrocities committed by Japanese invaders.
"Grandpa's late years in Germany were full of setbacks, but his kindness was never forgotten by those he helped," Thomas Rabe said, noting that man should always lend a helping hand to those in need, a lesson he learned from his grandfather.
Rabe followed the footsteps of his father, who was born and raised in China until returning to Germany at 14 and then studied medicine.
"He gave me grandpa's diary on the deathbed and asked me to fulfill his last wish, which was to revisit his former residence in Nanjing," Rabe recalled. He went back and raised funds to renovate the old place, as well as the security zone memorial hall.
With decades of clinical experience on gynecological endocrinology, Rabe joined Chinese doctors in cooperative research since his first visit to China back in 2001.
"Gynecological diseases are mostly caused by ovarian dysfunction," he said. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation and transplantation were still in their infancy in China even though they were already-well-established practices in Germany 10 years ago.
When he learned that some Chinese women lost their fertility due to limitations of medical technology, he decided to join an international team of professionals and cooperate with doctors from Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital and became a guest professor there in 2014.
As medical facilities and technologies advance, the gap in the medical field between China and Germany has been narrowed. China's first ovarian tissue cryopreservation bank was established in the hospital in January 2015.
"War wrecks lives, while doctors heal the wounded and rescue the dying," said Rabe, who inherits from his ancestors his great passion for life and love of peace.
In 2002, Rabe and his wife established the first John Rabe Communication Center in Heidelberg, and he donated all the original manuscripts of John Rabe's diary, some 2,000 pages, to China's National Archives Administration in 2016.
Rabe's son has been learning Chinese for a year and is going to study in China next year.
"I hope that future members of the Rabe family will love China and love peace, just like my grandfather," he said.
