Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

A group of Japanese professors at Kyushu University's medical school made a remarkably courageous move recently to publicly exhibit some incontrovertible evidence of the academy's infamous human experiments conducted on US prisoners of war (POW), further shaming those who continue to whitewash the country's aggression during WWII and deny past wartime atrocities.

Items displayed in the university's new museum centering on the history of the medical school are related to the dissection of eight US airmen while they were still alive.

During the gruesome episode, professors instructed students of "key points" in each step while they injected diluted seawater into their veins and removed their lungs and other organs.

Thanks to the conscientious professors, such a dark history has a bigger chance to be aware to the world, but the question now remains, how many other victims of Japan's war atrocities still remain unknown to the world, as Japanese right-wingers and, sometimes, the government, are trying to conceal the country's callous past.

Along with this monstrous revelation, mankind has been uncomfortably reminded how inhumane we humans can be, as April 7 also marks the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Rwanda Genocide. But without thorough reflection, mistakes, however heinous, can repeat themselves.

Facing undeniable proof, it is time for Japan's rightists to stop their rampant subterfuge aimed at whitewashing the country's odious atrocities and shaking off responsibilities by minimizing the number of victims, such as they try to do with the Nanjing Massacre and the comfort women issue.

It is also time for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to follow his predecessors, Tomiichi Murayama and Junichiro Koizumi, and include an apology for Japan's aggression, especially for the previously unaccounted victims, in his planned statement for the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII this summer.

Furthermore, it is high time for Japan to reflect on why it has still not reconciled with its neighboring countries over historical issues in seven decades, as in the same time the world has witnessed the reconciliation between Germany and France and saw that they together forged the integration of Europe.

The professors at Kyushu University took a valuable step amid the current prevalence of conservative politics in Japan, and it is unknown how many people who know about Japan's wartime history could follow their brave light in the darkness.

But one thing is for sure, the government is fighting back. The Japanese education ministry on April 6 released the school textbook censorship results and some of the schoolbook publishers have been subjected to Abe's historical revisionism by using ambiguous expressions on war-related history, instead of the original clear words that admitted the Japanese government's responsibility in the war.

Details of the immeasurable and horrific suffering of the eight US POWs were released ahead of Abe's visit to the US, and this time, it will be Washington's turn to tell the prime minister to own up to Japan's historical wrongdoings and to stop disrespecting the wartime victims and the international community by attempting to whitewash war crimes and blatantly trying to write a rosier history for itself.