Sunday. September 18. A high pitched whirring alarm goes off outside. It’s coming from the school across the road.
China does that. A three day holiday for Mid-Autumn Moon, and everyone’s back at work on the following Sunday, to make up for the free Friday off. Thursday’s the public holiday. So the schools in business, bright and early this Sunday morning.
I struggle out of bed. I dont do Sunday work. I do, what everyone does these days – check my phone. You know the drill, before your eyes have even half opened, your hand’s reaching for your phone to check updates. Any update, really. I mean you know people all across the world in different timezones. Anything could have happened.
Apparently, in Dongbei, it did. Back in 1931. My ex-inlaws have posted on China’s Wechat, the most popular app – well, in the world. ( get it now, if you dont have it. its awesome. :)) My ex-in-laws post says this:
1931, September 18 Liu Tiao incdent
1931, September 19, Shenyang has fallen.
1931, September 19, Changchun has fallen.
1931, September 22, Jilin falls.
I figure its to do with the Japanese invasion of North China. 东北 dong bei , the North-East, suffered from invasions and war long before World War 2 officially started. Back in 1931, stuff happened. A lot of stuff. Stuff like this.
“Bacili pestis were injected into human bodies for observing the course of pathological changes.” This painting is part of an exhibit found in the Ping Fan Museum, Harbin, China. The hypodermic in the physician’s hand (forefront of the artwork) both literally and figuratively illustrates the breakdown of medical ethics in the biowarfare program in wartime Japan.” Photo and quote from here
Unit 15, amongst many other Japanese Army Units, were to deploy chemical weapons. They built biological weapons factories up on Dongbei, and experimented on people. In what has been called the world’s worse case ofexperimentation with biological warfare and chemical massacre.People are still dying. Unexploded chemical bombs, or stashs of chemical weapons are found and injure and kill people. Children too.
http://www.china.org.cn/english/2004/Jul/102425.htm. There it is, read it for yourself.
Zhang Daqian was captured by the invading armies and sent to work in the Dongbei coal mines. You can read about his story at the link on the photo. A former Japanese soldier tells of a Chinese prisoner who had been deliberately infected with the plague:
“The fellow knew that it was over for him, and so he didn’t struggle.” recalled the old former medical assistant of a Japanese Army unit in China in World War II, “But when I picked up the scalpel that’s when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped.” Source: http://www.skycitygallery.com/hk/japan.html#unit731
Another solider’s confession:
“Subjects had to be dissected before death for our purposes, because with time bacteria would make the body rot. I did it [performed vivisections] because I thought I was serving the Emperor. At first I felt very bad, but after a few operations I got used to it. What is scary, is that I don’t get nightmares.
The logs [human research subjects] were there for experimental purposes. There was no guilt associated with the process. I take pride in having taken part in this work. I have no regrets. It was war.”
Japanese military terminology for human beings they infected with toxic chemicals was ‘logs’. Logs.
Source: https://www.laguardia.edu/maus/files/Ethics-ch-16.pdf
As the world’s first – and surely LAST – atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, Soviet soldiers and the Japanese army were at face off in Manchuria ( Dongbei). As the Soviets moved in, the Japanese moved out. The Soviets discovered something perfectly evil as the opposing army retreated. Near Hailar, Dongbei, a massive shallow grave with over 10,000 bodies. Chinese and Mongolian men, women and children had died, bodies left to rot in that grave.
I’ve had enough, really, have you? I can’t stomach any more. I read that last bit just now, as I searched Amazon for the book to match the picture, and read the inside. Sheldon Harris, Factories of Death. You can amazon-google it too, if you have the stomach.
Back in 1985, Germany apologzied for its treatment of Jewish people during World War 2. Its current economic success has ridden on the back of acknowledging its past. “for Germany, the road to prosperity began with trust, Gardner Feldman says. Germany realized that if it were to rejoin the international community, it could not run from its crimes but had to confront them” You’ll find that quote here.
World leaders are still trying to get Japan to admit to its wartime atrocities, and to apolozie for them. United Nations Secretary Ban-ki Moon recently called for Japan to apologize. source: http://www.coastweek.com/3832-United-Nations-secretary-general-urges-Japan-to-reflect-on-history.htm
Not all Japanese are militarists, but unfortunately for the world, militarists still run the country. The current president regularly visits, and bows too, the graves of war-criminals, mass murderers. The previous president, the one before the current incumbent, has visited a memorial to war victims in Korea and joined Ban-ki Moon in the call for President Abe to apologize for war crimes.Can Japan ever take a leaf out of Germany’s books and admit their mistakes?
Sometime back, whilst researching about something else, I’d come across this book I wanted to order. It was a rare book, hard to find, telling a story rarely heard. The story of China’s contribution to the war effort in World War 2. Last week whilst on a shopping spree in Shanghai, I stumbled into a bookshop and saw the book. Marvelling that I found this rare book, the proprietor came to tell me that all books in that shelf were free!
So that’s my free book. It tells the story of the war in China, the Japanese bombing of Chongqing, the rape of Nanjing, the many war time atrocities. Millar suggests the date of the commencment of World War 2 should be brought back to 1937, to include the Japanese war against China.
But the war had started years earlier.
Monday morning, September 19. I’m home sick with a wholloping rash all over my upper leg. The alarm goes off again. I check my phone. Days ago, here’s what it said
1931. September 19. Changchun has fallen.
Have you heard of the word democide before? I just heard of it, right now. RJ Rummel defines it as “death by government”. Here it is:
Sheldon Harris ( that’s his book above) estimates up to 200,000 people died in chemical warfare in Dongbei ( Manchuria). It’s probably a conservative estimate. Oh, the BBC estimates it was 300,000.Add that to the 300,000 tortured, brutalized and murdered in Nanjing, and… the list goes on. Have you had enough yet? I have. I feel sick even writing about it. But this article in the New York Times came out over a decade ago
Still no apology from Japan. Japan is still denying these war crimes ever occured.
Last bit:
“The deaths at Unit 731 and from the resulting biological weapons never received the same press the crimes of Auschwitz and its “angel of death” Josef Mengele did. There were no Nuremberg Trials, and the perpetrators of the experiments were never brought to justice. Many of them, including Unit 731’s commander and sadist mastermind Shiro Ishii, were honored for service to their country.” from here : http://firsttoknow.com/unit-731-horrors-asian-auschwitz-youve-never-heard/
If you have the guts to read the last linked article – and believe me, it will take a lot of guts to read about pure evil – you’ll find out that the USA offered these Japanese War Criminals IMPUNITY FROM PROSECTUTION in exchange for all experimental data.
spaceship china 