More than 1,000 privately owned historical documents that record Japanese militarists' crimes during World War II have been donated to the Museum of Overseas Chinese History in Beijing.

To reach the widest possible audience, the documents will be initially displayed at the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Aggression War Memorial Hall beginning Tuesday, said Qiao Wei, spokesman for the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.

The documents, held for years by Hsu Po Yih, a Taiwan artist and philanthropist, cover 1894 to 1936 and include internally distributed documents of Japanese troops as well as Asahi Shimbun newspapers during the war.