No. 47, Xinjiang Street, Pingfang District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, a large area of historical sites lie quietly here, quiet and peaceful.
If it weren't for the black font engraved with the "Ruins of the Seventh Three1st Army of the Japanese Invading China", you would hardly imagine that there had been a tragic massacre here eighty years ago. In a place called "ogreat cave" by Japanese writer Morimura Seiichi , no victim can leave alive.
Since 1936, The 731st Japanese invaders officially started the construction of the "Bacterial Warfare" base camp here. They used living people as experimental materials to study bacteria and carry out various cruel human experiments. The victims died in extreme pain. In 1945, Japan was defeated, and the 731 unit burned a lot of evidence of crime in a fire. They escaped trial and sanctions, which made this cruel history cover up for a time.
In 1982, the Pingfang District Cultural Relics Management Office of Harbin City was established, and the local protection of the "July 31 Site Group" gradually got on the right track. As scholars at home and abroad enriched their investigations on the Japanese 731 unit, the hidden truth gradually emerged and the evidence of being annihilated gradually became clear.
For decades, around the Japanese Invasion of China, the 731st Crime Exhibition Hall (hereinafter referred to as the 731st Crime Exhibition Hall), different people are running on the road in their own way, salvage the historical truth and inheriting historical memories.
The site of the 731st troops of the Japanese invading China. Photo provided by the interviewee
"Crime of Destruction of Crime"
September 8, in the cultural relics warehouse of the July 31 Crime Fair Exhibition Hall, rows of cultural relics were neatly arranged on shelves according to classification.
Every day, the first thing that cultural relics manager Xu Hongyan needs to do is to ventilate and dehumidify the warehouse. The summer weather in Harbin is the wettest season of the year. Although autumn is approaching, Xu Hongyan still needs to pay close attention to the humidity and temperature in the warehouse.
Starting from May 12 this year, the exhibition hall has been closed due to the basic display and renovation of the new museum and the maintenance of the venue. Usually, the exhibition hall will undergo renovation and maintenance in about three to five years. During this period, the entire exhibition hall will appear particularly empty and quiet.
Xu Hongyan's daily work has not been affected much. There are four people in the Cultural Relics Management Department of the July 31 Crime Examination Exhibition Hall, and they are preparing a list of cultural relics that will be updated for the opening and opening of the museum. New cultural relics must first be registered in the warehouse, then write the characteristics and sizes, take photos, make cultural relics registration forms, and register cultural relics archives. Cultural relics that have obtained the inlet certificate can be exhibited in the end. Xu Hongyan has worked in this job for
for 13 years. After graduating from university in 2009, Xu Hongyan, a majoring in Chinese language and literature, entered the July 31 Crime Examination Exhibition Hall and began to deal with cultural relics. She still remembers that when she first came, the new museum had not been built, and the cultural relics were scattered in two warehouses. She had to hand-written cultural relics descriptions and descriptions of the cultural relics. The collection of cultural relics was less than 2,000 sets. Over the years, the number of registered and archived cultural relics has reached more than 7,000 sets.
On August 10, 1945, the Japanese invaders, whose defeat was decided, received a retreat order. They blew up the construction facilities and experimental equipment, burned the archives and materials, killed the "living bodies" of the experiment, and brought important information and other evidence documents back to Japan. This objectively caused great difficulty in sorting out the evidence of the 731 unit.
Since 2014, the July 31 Crime Exhibition Hall and other relevant departments have successively completed archaeological cleaning of 10 sites and 9 national cultural relics protection projects, and completed the protection and repair of all 19 sites. The core area of the site has been opened to the outside world for more than 250,000 square meters, and have simultaneously completed environmental improvement and new museum construction.
The cultural relics that will be opened for exhibition include cultural relics collected from the archaeological exploration and cleaning of the Sifanglou site, the core area of the Qi 31 Army Site. Some cultural relics will be publicly unveiled for the first time. After the
exhibition hall is open, the electrical incubator will be displayed. Photo provided by the respondent
For example, the electrical incubator is on the list of this revision. This is a rust-colored iron rectangular body with the trademark "Electrical Incubator Co., Ltd.", which is a special equipment for bacterial incubation and production.
"This can be said to enrich the evidence of the 731 unit in bacterial research and laboratory production processes." Xu Hongyan introduced.
The former member of the 731 unit, Yataro Ueda, mentioned the process of germ production, "The equipment in the culture room is as follows: There are houses with a length of 15 meters, a width of 10 meters and a height of 4 meters. They can accommodate 450 iron tubes (30cm×30cm×40cm), and can produce 10 kilograms of bacteria per day. They are transported into the culture room through a transporter for cultivation. After 12 hours or 24 hours, the bacteria are then put into bottles and distributed to each shift. The first time I am in Class 3 used an incubator to create bacteria. There are 4 electrical incubators. They are specially used for plague bacteria . "
Some of these cultural relics were collected through collection, while some were found buried pits and excavated during the protection and display project. "They can be said to be the evidence of the crime of destroying the evidence of crime."
Xu Hongyan was taking photos of the cultural relics. Photo provided by the interviewee
"Death Factory"
For more than ten years of working, Xu Hongyan has been accustomed to the "dialogue" with silent history.
As a Harbin native, she has been familiar with the sins of the 731st Army since she was a child. Before the new pavilion was completed, Xu Hongyan's office and exhibition pavilion were located in the main building, which was once the core commanding body of the 731 unit and the central organization for the planning, organizing, implementing bacterial experiments and bacterial warfare in the 731 unit.
The building of this department is in the shape of "巴", and originally had the Office of the 731 Commander's Office, the Office of the Guard Office, the Diagnosis and Treatment Department, the Sample Showroom, the Gendarmerie Room, etc.
There is a four-sided building behind this building, which is the former site of a special prison where bacterial experiments are conducted and the subjects are detained. Among the ruins, the old site of the underground breeding room of small animals, the old site of the frostbite laboratory, the old site of the yellow rat breeding room, the old site of the boiler room, the old site of the Nanwei Office, etc. are all well preserved.
According to reports, each building is connected to an underground passage, and a north-south railway passes through the east side of the old site, responsible for the "one-stop" transportation of all the experimenters and items needed for Unit 731.
This 731 Unit site with an area of 245,000 square meters and 27 key protected relics is the largest research, experiment and manufacturing base for bacterial weapon in world history.
1931 September 18th Incident , the Northeast fell, Japan supported the establishment of the puppet Manchukuo, and began to implement a 14-year colonial rule in the Northeast.
The bungalow is 24 kilometers south of Harbin. It was originally a small station on Labin Railway . The Japanese Kwantung Army occupied land at Huangjiawo Fort, 4 kilometers north of Bingfang Station, and was classified as "military land." In 1936, this extremely secret project officially started, and thousands of people nearby were requisitioned for work. Disaster is approaching with people's hard work brick by brick. In less than three years, almost a city that could operate independently appeared in the wilderness.
At first, the Japanese army called the bacterial warfare troops the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department" to the outside world, and Shiro Ishii was the commander of the troops. He recruited a large number of people from Japan, including a large number of medical scientists, pharmacists and biologists, which was the later infamous Unit 731.
Plade bacteria, anthrax bacteria, cholera bacteria, mice, flea , horses... These creatures that cannot be seen or seen with the naked eye are constantly reproduced or destroyed in the laboratory. The living people who were experimented are called "big roads" (logs) in Japanese. The most common "big roads" are Chinese, as well as Koreans, Mongolians and Soviets.
Those experimental processes are still shocking.
According to the confession of Yamashito, the former captain of the experimental team of the 731 unit, "There are two methods for experiments. One is to pour bacteria into the mouth and the other is to inject subcutaneously. During the experiment, people were tied up and bacteria were mixed into water and poured into the mouth. Our team conducted the experiments with 10 to 20 people every day. There were more than 400 people using the method of infusion, and more than 250 people were injected subcutaneously... Among the people who were experimented, five or six were women... Sometimes, the people who were experimented resisted, and gendarmerie was suppressed on the spot, and the people who were strongly rebelled were killed with pistols."
After researching various "fatal infectious bacteria", in order to test the killing methods and efficacy of these bacteria as weapons, they used "Road Big" in the wild for practical experiments.
Former member of the 731st Unit, Otsuka Oshino, wrote an article in 1985: ... Bacterial bomb was detonated through the fuse, and only a small explosion sound was heard outdoors, and countless plague fleas infected with plague bacteria jumped straight into "Road Big" indoors. … An hour later, the "Road Big" was pulled out from the inside, and their whole bodies were thoroughly disinfected, and they were sent to the laboratory. … The "Road Big" in the laboratory began to toss, some had high fevers, and some had septic symptoms. The dead were dissected immediately, and the alive were drawn with blood, preparing to make serum. People who were not infected were ready to use it next time. As the "mass material", the whole body is not wasted at all.
In addition, in this "death factory", many living anatomy were also carried out, as well as experiments including frostbite and human physiological limits. In his documentary work "The Devil's Feed", Japanese writer Seiichi Morimura called it "a crime that was parallel to the Auschwitz concentration camp of the Nazis in World War II ".
The evil chain of bacterial warfare extended from north to south: the Kwantung Army 100 in Changchun, the Beizhijia 1855 in Peking , the Nanjing Rongzi 1644 in Guangzhou Bozi 8604 in , and even the 9420 in Singapore in Nanyang. The Japanese army established the major cities in China. 63 bacterial weapon branches, a huge bacterial force network with Unit 731 as the core and "epidemic water supply" as the cover, shrouded on the land of China.
The " 731 Unit Anatomy Laboratory" in the 731st Japanese Army Invasion of China, the exhibition hall of the " 731st Unit Anatomy Laboratory" was held in the exhibition hall. . Photo provided by the respondent with the "special identity" volunteer tour guide
89-year-old Zhang Shenghong from Changde, Hunan, is the oldest volunteer in the 731st Crime Exhibition Hall. In the past few decades after retirement, he appeared in the exhibition hall almost every day.
Zhang Shenghong also has a special identity - as a witness of the war, he once had The bacterial war passed by.
In November 1938, with the failure of Wuhan battle, the Japanese army further advanced towards southwest . The Kuomintang government burned Changsha and gave up the city. Changde became the new target of the Japanese army, and fierce air raids destroyed the fish and rice town on Dongting Lake.
Zhang Shenghong's family of seven, he is the youngest child, with four brothers and one sister on it. Whenever the alarm sounds, people have to pack up the "alarm bag" and run out of the city with money, clothes and necessities.
Zhang Shenghong's father was shot on his way to escape, and shrapnel remained on his buttocks. "My father died until after the founding of in New China, and that shrapnel was not taken out. "Zhang Shenghong's tone was sad.
When Zhang Shenghong was 8 years old, his home was blown up in an air raid. The family had to move to Jinxia Township, but just escaped a bigger disaster.
In the early morning of November 4, 1941, a Japanese plane took advantage of the night and heavy fog to sneak into the sky above Changde. After hovering for several weeks, it dropped a large number of grains, wheat, rags, cotton and other foreign objects in Guanmiao Street, Jige Lane and Dongmen area of the city. A few days later, plague appeared in Changde City.
The first girl recorded to die of plague was Cai Taoer, who was only 12 years old at the time. Her home was in Guanmiaoqian Street, Changde, and was only a small alley from Zhang Shenghong's bombed home. "If we had not gone to the countryside, we would have been infected and we would definitely die. "Zhang Shenghong said.
"Peach Blossom Land" Changde has become a terrifying plague city. Initially, in the report document of Chen Wengui, an expert in bacteriology, the patient was diagnosed with bubonic plague. It was not until April 1942 that a 33-year-old woman was diagnosed with the first severe infectious disease - pneumoplague.
According to public information, the first step of natural plague is to spread between rats, and the second step is to spread it to humans. Usually, the bacteria infected by rats bite humans, or humans are exposed to animals carrying the diseased body and fur infection.Most of the bubonic plague occurs at this stage, characterized by high fever, inguinal or swelling of the axillary lymph. Pneumoplague usually starts after bubonic plague. It passes through the stage of animals to humans and can be transmitted through air droplets. Its spread, onset and death are extremely fast and difficult to extinguish.
According to the 7-year investigation report of the Changde Bacterial Warfare victim investigation, from November 1941 to the end of 1945, 7 districts, counties, cities, 60 townships and 486 natural villages were killed in 7 districts, counties, cities and cities around Changde, a total of 7,643 people were killed.
html More than 0 years later, Zhang Shenghong learned that this was a bacterial weapon that can be used on the battlefield and has large-scale destruction effect - plague fleas, which was produced in the "death factory" of the 731 Force, and it has been practiced in Zhejiang's bacterial war in 1940.How does "plague fleas" spread? In his report to the Chongqing government, Chen Wengui and Bolis pointed out that most of the pure plague bacteria will die from high altitudes, and when they are parasitized in the fleas, they land safely under the protection of rags and cotton. In addition, the scattered wheat can attract mice. After the fleas land on the ground, they directly bite people and cause plague to be infected with, and the other is parasitized on mice, causing plague.
The "Yimen Log" records this attack on Changde's bacterial warfare: the Japanese army threw "36 kilograms" of plague fleas in Changde, with 1,700 fleas in one gram, and a total of 36 kilograms of fleas in total. It is understood that the population of Changde urban area at that time was only 60,000. From a theoretical basis, Changde residents were attacked by 1,000 plague fleas.
18 years old, Zhang Shenghong left Changde and went to the aviation school in Shanghai. He was later assigned to Lanzhou and Taiyuan. In 1957, he came to Harbin and worked in Harbin Group for decades. As if fate was destined, Zhang Shenghong had an indissoluble bond with the 731 Army Crime Exhibition Hall, and he decided to tell this history as his mission for the rest of his life.
In the exhibition hall, Zhang Shenghong often explains to three types of visitors, "The first type is about the same age as me, the second type is from the south, and the third type is that we have common experiences or feelings." Zhang Shenghong told the Beijing News reporter.
On September 14, the old man Zhang Shenghong sorted out information on bacterial warfare at home. Photo provided by the interviewee
"Special transfer"
In the July 31 Crime Examination Exhibition Hall, the "Special transfer" exhibition area was the focus of the director Jin Sung-min when he was the explanation. Especially when leaders or staff from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and provincial and municipal civil affairs bureaus visit, Jin Chengmin will seek their support and help to the victims who have not successfully applied for the "martyrs' certificate".
In 1997, Jin Chengmin searched for the vast Japanese and puppet archives of the Heilongjiang Provincial Archives for three months until a rectangular seal with the word "specially shifted" came into view. The most powerful and direct evidence of the 731 unit using living people to conduct bacterial experiments - the "special transfer" file, which is the light of day again.
The so-called "special transfer" is a special term used within the Kanto Gendarmerie and the 731 Bacterial Unit of the Japanese invaders. That is, the arrested anti-Japanese personnel and anti-fascist patriots were directly interrogated without being tried by the court, and then the interrogation report was reported to the Kanto Gendarmerie Command step by step. After approval, they were secretly transferred to the 731 Unit for human experiment materials.
In order to cover up the crime, the Japanese army called this action a "special transfer".
In fact, as early as 1932, the predecessor of the 731 unit, the "Gamao Unit", began to use living people to conduct bacterial weapons experiments in Beiyinhe Town. The living people used to do the experiment at that time were "anti-Japanese elements", "Su spies", "horse thieves" and so on obtained from various channels by the Kwantung Army .
In 1999, this batch of original archives was released for the first time, and 66 archives involved 52 "special transfers".Li Fengqin from Changchun, Jilin saw the "special transfer" list announced by the July 31 Crime Examination Exhibition Hall in the newspaper for the first time. A familiar and unfamiliar name "Li Pengge" broke into her sight - her father she had never met before!
When her father Li Pengge "disappeared", she was not born yet. Li Fengqin had only heard her grandmother talk about her father's life: Li Pengge was born in Xiongyue Town (now Liming Village) in Gai County, Liaoning Province in February 1917 (lunar calendar). After graduating from Xiongyue Tiedong Public School, she was admitted to the telecommunications department of Fengtian (Shenyang) Railway College. After graduation in 1936, she went to work in the Mudanjiang Railway Electrical Affairs Section. In 1940, he was promoted to deputy stationmaster.
There is a radio station hidden in the wall of the Li family. Li Pengge always reminds his family to burn documents with words at any time.
Until one day in June 1941, my father never returned home after going to work. A few days later, a group of Japanese soldiers broke into their homes and found nothing.
In the autumn of that year, Li Fengqin was born. For decades, she firmly believed that her father was doing underground work and was an anti-fascist fighter.
"My grandmother and mother have been waiting for their father to come back for decades. When the old man passed away, he said, 'You have to find him, don't forget, don't give up.'" Li Fengqin said that the last sentence of the old man at the time of death was to let them spend an hour every day to "miss his father."
81-year-old Li Fengqin recalled that after seeing her father's name on the transfer list, she and her brother immediately rushed to the July 31 Exhibition Hall and learned that the time when her father was transferred was July 28, 1941. She felt mixed feelings inside. "We bowed to the sky and the ground, and called Dad." Li Fengqin said with a sob. When his father "disappeared", his brother couldn't speak. It was the first time that the brother and sister called "Dad". They couldn't get up and they were crying like rain.
As relevant archival materials were excavated and sorted out, in 2011, the July 31 Crime Examination Exhibition Hall issued a "Recognition Letter" for the martyrs of Li Pengge: "Based on the materials and investigations, it can be determined that Li Pengge, as an anti-fascist soldier and anti-Japanese patriot, has been engaged in anti-Japanese activities for a long time. On July 28, 1941, he was sent to the 731 Unit by the Kanto Gendarmerie of the Japanese invading China in a 'special transfer' method to the 731 Unit by the 'special transfer' file."
It has been more than 20 years since it was discovered from the "special transfer" file of the 731 Unit to the search and collecting the victim's survivors based on clues. The exhibition hall data shows that "As of now, the number of victims related to the special transfer archives with no surname, no surname, no surname and surname is 1,549, and there are 42 victims who have investigated and collected evidence for many years."
"Special transfer" exhibition area. Photo provided by the interviewee
" Take your children to the exhibition hall again "
In the past two years, Zhang Shenghong rarely goes to the July 31 evidence exhibition hall again.
When he was hiding from Japanese bombing in his early years, he was very young. His brother fled while slipping his collar. He fell a big bow and then fell into a hidden disease in his left leg. Under the attack of aging and disease, he could hardly go out.
After his wife passed away a few years ago, Zhang Shenghong lived alone in an old-fashioned unit building. His house is on the fourth floor, and it is difficult to get up and down. The son once wanted to take him to the elevator room, but Zhang Shenghong refused. There is still a large amount of information about the Anti-Japanese War that he collected in his family, and he is reluctant to leave it to move.
When he had just retired, Zhang Shenghong felt that the younger generation at home did not know history, so he sorted out the historical materials from the Anti-Japanese War and exhibited them at their own expense in the community and factories. He also went back to Changde several times and had close contact with the Changde Bacterial War Victim Investigation Association. He tried to find witnesses, but found nothing.
Hometown has long changed. Standing on the street, he is at a loss and cannot even recognize the location of his hometown where he was blown up back then.
But Zhang Shenghong wants to continue doing something. His hands were shaking violently and he struggled to write, so he could only do some simple organization. "If it weren't for the epidemic in Harbin, I would also like to hold an exhibition on 'September 18th'." During the closing of
, the July 31 Crime Examination Exhibition Hall solicited cultural relics from the public. According to Xu Hongyan, a total of 141 sets of more than 400 cultural relics were collected this time, mainly some medical devices and other items left by the 731st Unit at that time, and most of them were donated to individuals.
What impressed Xu Hongyan the most was a young donor a few years ago. His name was Xu Laiqing. He was a collector who was interested in the history of World War II . After Xu Laiqing found the military uniforms of the soldiers suspected to be in the Qiqihar antique market and the badge with the Japanese printed on it, he bought it at his own expense and made a special trip from Qiqihar to Harbin to give it to the exhibition hall.
Xu Laiqing is from Qiqihar, 30 years old this year, and is a civil servant. Xu Laiqing told the Beijing News that his family was near the ruins of the 516th Japanese troops invading China. "516 " is called the "Japanese Army Chemistry Institute" in Japan. This unit mainly develops a series of poisons, including mustard gas , Louis' gas, chlorate gas, etc., and is used in actual combat. It has also been used in live experiments. In Xu Laiqing's view, the 516th Unit and the 731st Unit are equally cruel and terrifying. After working in
, Xu Laiqing often went to the antique market and made unexpected discoveries. He spent more than 400 yuan to buy a military coat and badge, and picked it up for a weekend to come to Harbin to find the 731 crime exhibition hall. That was Xu Laiqing's first time going to the exhibition hall. He was shocked and sad when he saw those shocking cultural relics and historical materials. Later, Xu Laiqing also found a seal of merit for the founding of the puppet Manchukuo and donated it to the Northeast Martyrs Memorial Hall.
Exhibition Hall staff are sorting out and recording cultural relics. Photo provided by the interviewee
Xu Laiqing admitted that he is busy with work now, gets married and has a family, and does not have much time to regain his hobby of collecting, but he is still paying attention to the July 31 Crime Examination Exhibition Hall and this historical past. "When I have a child in the future, I will take my child to the exhibition hall again." Xu Laiqing said, "Historical memory must be passed down from generation to generation."
Beijing News reporter Li Zhao Editor Yuan Guoli Proofreading Li Lijun
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