But one night in November 2004, the 36-year-old Chang, who had been quietly struggling with depression, left her husband asleep in their San Jose home and drove her car to a lonely private road south of Los Gatos. She put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

It took more than a year before her mother, Ying-Ying Chang, could talk about her daughter without crying. When the emotional blackness and numbness began to fade about a year and a half after her daughter's death, Chang began asking herself what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She decided the best way to cope was to finish her daughter's work: trying to persuade the Japanese government to apologize for the wartime conduct of its troops and pay victims compensation — and educating young people about the "Forgotten Holocaust."

"She was my daughter but also my best friend and my spiritual mentor," said Chang of San Jose, a retired scientist who, with her husband, now helps run an international essay contest that encourages young people to think more deeply about issues of war and peace.

"She is carrying the torch," said Ignatius Ding of Cupertino, executive vice president of the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia.

Private showing

Chang, 69, and her husband, Shau-Jin, 72, recently got a private showing of an extraordinary exhibit at Stanford's Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion. "Shattered Peace: The Road to World War II" features a collection of rarely seen propaganda posters, old photographs, books and artifacts showing how a series of military actions and diplomatic failures in Europe and Asia paved the way to the Second World War. Some of the items, on display until the end of May, were pulled from the 240 boxes of Iris Chang's research material donated before and after her death to the Hoover Institution.

"For many Americans, the war in the Pacific didn't begin until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941," said San Jose State University graduate Nick Siekierski, an assistant archivist at Hoover who put together the exhibit.

To counter that notion, the exhibit traces how Japan's 1931 march into Manchuria, China's northeastern region, and the second Sino-Japanese War set the stage for Pearl Harbor.

A full-scale war between the Chinese and Japanese began in July 1937 when the Japanese Imperial Army attacked the vital Marco Polo Bridge outside of Beijing. After the brutal three-month Battle of Shanghai, the victorious Japanese moved on to the capital, Nanking.

Which is where the story of Iris Chang picks up.

Atrocities unearthed

Chang detailed how the siege and occupation of the city resulted in the deaths of about 300,000 Chinese — mostly innocent civilians who were bayoneted, machine-gunned and burned alive. Japanese officers and soldiers raped tens of thousands of women and girls.

The worldwide movement to expose the holocaust had begun in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s, when a determined and well-heeled group of Chinese-Americans formed the global alliance. Chang, who moved to the valley in 1996 after her engineer husband joined Applied Signal Technology, had linked up with the group.

When her book came out in 1997, Chang appeared on "Nightline," "Good Morning America," the McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour and Canadian TV. She was interviewed by nearly every major newspaper and made the cover of Reader's Digest.

Because of Chang, North Americans learned that China's "Forgotten Holocaust" had actually begun in 1931 when Japan set up a puppet state in Manchuria. Several months later, the Japanese built their first germ warfare center outside Harbin. Bombs containing germs aimed at causing diseases such as typhoid and the bubonic plague were later dropped on numerous Chinese cities.

In addition to using biological weapons, Japanese troops looted, burned and killed. Many historians estimate the ultimate death toll was as high as 30 million — about five times the number of people exterminated in the Nazi Holocaust.

The Hoover exhibit includes a rare Red Cross flag designed by leaders of the Nanking Safety Zone, created by a group of more than 20 Western missionaries to save the lives of as many Nanking residents as possible. Ying-Ying Chang still has the copy of a November 1998 e-mail from her daughter in which she excitedly tells her mom how the son of one of the Safety Zone committee members had given her the flag, made out of a rice bag, during one of her book tours.

Lionized in China

Iris Chang would have turned 41 last Saturday. Since her death, she has taken on almost mythical proportions in China. A foundation there erected a life-size statue of her in the Nanking Massacre Memorial Hall, and placed a bronze bust of her in Hoover's archive reading room. Several movies have been made about her and her cause.

Ying-Ying and Shau-Jin Chang — who were both born in China but met in Taiwan before coming to America — set up the Iris Chang Memorial Fund on her birthday three years ago. The fund is committed to perpetuating her belief that only by telling historical truths can humanity secure justice for victims, prevent countries from repeating the mistakes of the past and bring about reconciliation and lasting peace.

Now Ying-Ying Chang sees a life of research, speaking engagements and spreading her daughter's message. She's also writing a memoir of Iris.

"I usually don't cry in public, but it doesn't mean I'm not crying," she said. "I cry inside."

Contact Ken McLaughlin at kmclaughlin@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5552.