Bleached bones in mass graves condemn Japan's wartime atrocities during its invasion of China

Those who visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders will find the mass graves exhibition hall deeply disturbing. The hall itself is part of the Jiangdongmen mass grave site, where bleached human bones lie jumbled layer upon layer in what the Chinese people call a ten-thousand-people pit. Some bones appear to freeze in the terror of screaming for help, others in the despair of silent sobs. They are a quiet yet overwhelming condemnation of the heinous crimes committed by Japanese militarist invaders decades ago.

The Jiangdongmen site is merely the tip of the iceberg of the atrocities of Japanese militarism. During its war of aggression, the Japanese army buried victims en masse, with a huge number of remains discarded in a brutal and disorganized manner, creating many mass graves. In Nanjing alone, 17 such mass graves are scattered across locations including Jiangdongmen, Purple Mountain and Yuhuatai, now preserved as collective burial sites for future generations to mourn the victims of war.

Beyond Nanjing, countless mass graves dot the map of China, stretching from Hegang and Dongning in the snow-covered lands of northeast China to Sanya and Dongfang at the southernmost tip of the country, from the borderlands of Yunnan in the southwest to the Zhoushan harbors in the east. Without exception, each site is lined with heaps of bleached bones—of those who were slaughtered or tortured to death, of those who perished from illness, injury or starvation, and of those who died from backbreaking forced labor.

Along the Great Wall there is a concentrated zone of mass graves created by the Japanese army's direct massacres. Between 1939 and 1945, in the name of safeguarding the "southwestern border" of Japan's puppet regime in northeast China, the Japanese army implemented a policy of forced "village consolidation" across some 50,000 square kilometers along the Great Wall and carried out the notorious "Three Alls Policy" (kill all, burn all, loot all). Patriots resisting Japanese aggression and innocent civilians were slaughtered and their bodies were left in the wild, forming numerous mass graves. The Shuiquangou mass grave in Chengde, Hebei Province is the largest single mass grave in China, holding as many as 38,000 human remains.

Japan's economic plunder also created a great number of mass graves. During its war of aggression against China, Japan extracted China's economic resources, especially important minerals such as coal and iron ore, through its zaibatsu financial conglomerates. It forcibly conscripted a huge number of laborers and made them work in abysmal conditions, leading to the death of countless people from illness and disability. Mass graves of forced laborers have been discovered in mining areas across Hegang, Datong, Shijiazhuang, Huainan, Sanya and many other places.

A typical example is the Datong Coal Mine Mass Grave. Over the eight years that the South Manchuria Railway (SMR) occupied the Datong Coal Mine, the notorious Japanese conglomerate implemented a bloodcurdling policy of "trading lives for coal." Miners, even child laborers, were subjected to brutal abuse and exploitation. The SMR plundered 14 million tons of high-quality coal and caused the death of about 60,000 miners, some of whom were buried alive after being deemed "useless" because they were too weak to work. As a result, 20 mass graves formed in the nearby valleys and abandoned mine shafts.

In addition, the Japanese army's construction of military facilities also led to the mass deaths of conscripted laborers. For instance, during and after the construction of the Dongning Fortress Group in preparation for war against the Soviet Union, the Japanese army secretly slaughtered most of the conscripted laborers, leaving more than 10 laborers' cemeteries in surrounding areas such as Laochengzigou Village. Research has confirmed that 51,000 laborers perished there. Another example is the Japanese army's construction of coastal artillery emplacements on the Shengsi Islands in Zhoushan in 1944: the bones of conscripted laborers were piled in a nearby col, forming the Tian'ao Mass Grave.

Some of these mass graves also hold the remains of numerous victims from other parts of China and from other countries. At the Tiandu Mass Grave in Sanya, Hainan Province, the Japanese army forced laborers seized from Taiwan and Hong Kong of China, and from Korea, India and other places to mine and build roads, and tortured them to death. Among them, more than 1,000 Koreans were collectively relocated to a "Korean Village" and brutally massacred when the Japanese army was defeated. At the Basuo Port Mass Grave in Dongfang, Hainan Province, British, Australian and other Allied prisoners of war were forced to build the port, ultimately dying in a foreign land.

The mass graves are the most direct and conclusive evidence of the Japanese aggressors' abhorrent crimes, including mass murders, economic plunder and forced labor. They stand as the most solemn and compelling rebuttal to the Japanese militarists who push a revisionist narrative and deny and glorify Japan's war history. The bleached bones have no voice, yet their silent lament have never ceased. Scattered across China, these mass graves are a heart-wrenching scar on the nation and a perpetual warning to future generations that history must never be forgotten.

The author is an international affairs observer.