 |
Japanese Germ Warfare Test Base Opens to Public
The world's largest germ warfare experimental base, which was built by Japanese troops in China during World War II, opened to the public recently after one-year maintenance and further exploitation.
The cleaning of the site of Unit 731 of Japan's Kwantung Army in northeast China's Heilongjiang province got started last August and over 100 households and about 10 factories were moved away from the site.
The project was estimated to have cost nearly 100 million yuan (12 million U.S. dollars). Some Japanese non-governmental organizations and civilians have made donations in support of the project.
Chinese researchers found more 1,200 pieces of relics, strong evidence of Japanese war crimes, from the scraps of the slaughterhouse, including injectors, high-pressure boilers used to destroy germs, and the vestiges of germ bombs.
Unit 731 was part of Japan's Kwantung Army with headquarters in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, in 1932. It is notorious for manufacturing materials for germ warfare.
The Kwantung Army headquarters burned and buried its records of Unit 731 in an attempt to get rid of evidence just before Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945.
According to historical records available, Unit 731 experimented on more than 10,000 prisoners of war and civilians from China, the Korean Peninsula, Mongolia, and the former Soviet Union.
Chinese researchers are preparing to put this historical reminder of World War II on the World Heritage List.
So far 23 Chinese cultural and natural sites have been approved by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the list. None of them has been for wars.
Hiroshima, one of the two Japanese cities which suffered from the attack of an atomic bomb in 1945, has succeeded in applying for the World Heritage list sponsored by UNESCO.
In This Section
|