by Ken Liu
without use of anesthesia since anesthesia might have affected the
results, and it was felt that the same would be true with the women
with syphilis.
Shiro Yamagata:
I do not remember how many women I vivisected.
Some of the women were very brave, and would lie down on the
table without being forced . I learned to say, “ bútòng, bútòng ” or “ it
won't hurt ” in Chinese to calm them down . We would then tie them to
the table.
Usually the first incision, from thorax to stomach, would cause the
women to scream horribly. Some of them would keep on screaming for
a long while during the vivisection . We used gags later because the
screaming interfered with discussion during the vivisections . Generally
the women stayed alive until we cut open the heart, and so we saved
that for last.
I remember once vivisecting a woman who was pregnant. We did
not use chloroform initia lly, but then she begged us, “ Please kill me,
but do not kill my child.” We then used chloroform to put her under
before finishing her.
None of us had seen a pregnant woman's insides before, and it was
very informative . I thought about keeping the fetus for some
experiment, but it was too weak and died soon after being removed .
We tried to guess whether the fetus was from the seed of a Japanese
doctor or one of the Chinese prisoners, and I think most of us agreed
in the end that it was probably one of the prisoners due to the ugliness
of the fetus.
I believed that the work we did on the women was very valuable,
and gained us many insights.
I did not think that the work we did at Unit 731 was particularly
strange . After 1941, I was assigned to northern China, first in Hebei
Province and then in Shanxi Province . In army hospitals, we military
doctors regularly scheduled surgery practice sessions with live Chinese
subjects. The army would provide the subjects on the announced days.
We practiced amputations, cutting out sections of intestines and
suturing together the remaining sections, and removing various
internal organs .
Often the practice surgeries were done without anesthesia to
simulate battlefield conditions. Sometimes a doctor would shoot a
prisoner in the stomach to simulate war wounds for us to practice on.
After the surgeries, one of the officers would behead the Chinese
subject or strangle him . Sometimes vivisections were also used as
anatomy lessons for the younger trainees and to give them a thrill . It
was important for the army to produce good surgeons quickly, so that
we could help the soldiers.
You know old people are very lonely, so when they want attention,
they'll say anything. They would confess to these ridiculous made- up
stories about what they did . It's really sad . I'm sure I can find some old
Australian soldier who'll confess to cutting up some abo woman if you
put out an ad asking about it . The people who tell these stories just
want attention, like those Korean prostitutes who claim to have been
kidnapped by the Japanese Army during the War.
“ John, ” last name withheld, high school teacher, Perth, Australia:
I think it's hard to judge someone if you weren't there . It was
Patty Ashby, homemaker, Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
during the Wa r, and bad things happen during wars . The Christian
thing to do is to forget and forgive. Dragging up things like this is
uncharitable . And it's wrong to mess with time like that . Nothing good
can come of it.
You know, the thing is that the Chinese have been very cruel to
dogs, and they even eat dogs. They have also been very mean to the
Tibetans. So it makes you think, was it karma?
Sharon, actress, New York, New York:
On August 15, 1945, we heard that the Emperor had surrendered
to America. Like many other Japanese in China at that time, my unit
decided that it was easier to surrender to the Chinese Nationalists. My
unit was then reformed and drafted into a unit of the Nationalist
Army under Chiang Kai -Shek, and I continued to work as an army
doctor assisting the Nationalists against the Communists in the
Chinese Civil War. As the Chinese had almost no qualified surgeons,
my work was very much needed, and I was treated well.
Shiro Yamagata:
The Nationalists were no match for the Communists, however,
and in January, 1949, the Communists captured the army field
hospital I was staffed in, and took me prisoner . For the first month, we
were not allowed to leave our cells . I tried to make friends with the
guards . The Communists soldiers were very young and thin, but they
seemed to be in much better spirits than their Nationalist
counterparts.
After a month, we, along with the guards, were given daily lessons
on Marxism and Maoism.
The War was not my fault and I was not to be blamed, I was told.
I was just a soldier, deceived by the Showa Emperor and Hideki Tojo
into fighting a war of invasion and oppression against the Chinese .
Through studying Marxism, I was told, I would come to understand
that all poor men, the Chinese and Japanese alike, were brothers. W e
were expected to reflect on what we did to the Chinese people, and to
write confessions about the crimes we committed during the War .
Our punishment would be lessened, we were told, if our confessions
showed sincere hearts . I wrote confessions, but they were always
rejected for not being sincere enough.
Still, because I was a doctor, I was allowed to work at the
provincial hospital to treat patients . I was the most senior surgeon at
the hospital and had my own staff.
We heard rumors that a new war was about to start between the
United States and China in Korea. How could China win against the
United States, I thought. Even the mighty Japanese Army could not
stand against America . Perhaps I will be captured by the Americans
next . I suppose I was never very good at predicting the outcomes of
wars.
Food became scarce after the Korean War began. The guards ate
rice with scallions and wild weeds, while prisoners like me were given
rice and fish.
Why is this? I asked.
You are prisoners, my guard, who was only sixteen, said . You are
from Japan . Japan is a wealthy country, and you must be treated in a
manner that matched as closely as possible the conditions in your
home country.
I offered the guard my fish, and he refused.
You do not want to touch the food that had been touched by a
Japanese Devil? I joked with him . I was also teaching him how to read,
and he would sneak me cigarettes.
I was a very good surgeon, and I was proud of my work.
Sometimes I felt that despite the War, I was doing China a great deal
of good, and I helped many patients with my skills.
One day, a woman came to see me in the hospital . She had broken
her leg, and because she lived far from the hospital, by the time her
family brought her to me, gangrene had set in, and the
leg had to be
amputated.
She was on the table, and I was getting ready to administer
anesthesia . I looked into her eyes, trying to calm her . “ Bútòng, bútòng.”
Her eyes became very wide, and she screamed . She screamed and
screamed, and scrambled off the table, dragging her d ead leg with her
until she was as far away from me as possible.
I recognized her then . She had been one of the Chinese girl
prisoners that we had trained to help us as nurses at the army hospital
during the War with China. She had helped me with some of th e
practice surgery sessions . I had slept with her a few times. I didn't
know her name. She was just “#4” to me, and some of the younger
doctors had joked about cutting her open if Japan lost and we had to
retreat.
[Interviewer (off -camera)
I was filled with unspeakable grief . It was only then that I
understood what kind of a life and career I had . Because I wanted to be
a successful doctor, I did things that no human being should do. I
wrote my confession then, and when my guard read my confession, he
would not speak to me.
: Mr. Yamagata, y ou cannot cry . You know that.
We cannot show you being emotional on film. We have to stop if you
cannot control yourself.]
I served my sentence and was released and allowed to return to
Japan in 1956.
I felt lost . Everyone was working so hard in Japan . But I didn't
know what to do.
“ You should not have confessed to anything,” one of my friends,
who was in the same unit with me, told me. “ I didn't, and they released
me years ago. I have a good job now . My son is going to be a doctor.
Don't say anything about what happened during the War.”
I moved here to Hokkaido to be a farmer, as far away from the
heart of Japan as possible . For all these years I stayed silent to protect
my friend. And I believed that I would die before hi m, and so take my
secret to the grave.
But my friend is now dead, and so, even though I have not said
anything about what I did all these years, I will not stop speaking now.
I am speaking only for myself, and perhaps for my aunt . I am the
last connection between her and the living world . And I am turning
into an old woman myself.
Lillian C. Chang- Wyeth:
I don't know much about politics, and don't care much for it . I
have told you what I saw, and I will remember the way my aunt cried
in that cell until the day I die .
You ask me what I want. I don't know how to answer that .
Some have said that I should demand that the surviving members
of Unit 731 be brought to justice . But what does that mean? I am no
longer a child. I do not want to see trials, parades, spectacles . The law
does not give you real justice.
What I really want is for what I saw to never have happened. But
no one can give me that. And so I resort to wanting to have my aunt's
story remembered, to have the guilt of her killers and torturers laid
bare to the gaze of the world, the way that they laid her bare to their
needle and scalpel.
I do not know how to describe those acts other than as crimes
against humanity . They were denials against the very idea of life itself.
The Japanese government has never acknowledged the actions of
Unit 731, and it has never apologized for them. Over the years, more
and more evidence of the atrocities committed during those years have
come to life, but always the answer is the same: there is not enough
evidence to know what happened.
Well, now there is. I have seen what happened with my own eyes .
And I will speak about what happened, speak out against the
denialists . I will tell my story as often as I can.
The men and women of Unit 731 committed those acts in the
name of Japan and the Japanese people . I demand that the government
of Japan acknowledge these crimes against humanity, that it apologize
for them, and that it commit to preserving the memory of the victims
and condemning the guilt of those criminals so l ong as the word justice
still has meaning.
I am also sorry to say, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Subcommittee, that the government of the United States has also
never acknowledged or apologized for its role in shielding these
criminals from justice after the War, or in making use of the
information bought at the expense of torture, rape, and death . I
demand that the government of the United States acknowledge and
apologize for these acts.
That is all.
I would like to again remind members of the public that they must
maintain order and decorum during this hearing or risk being forcibly
removed from this room.
Representative Hogart:
Ms. Chang- Wyeth, I am sorry for whatever it is you think you
have experienced . I have no doubt that it has deeply affected you . I
thank the other witnesses as well for sharing their stories.
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I must again
note for the record my objection to this hearing and to the Resolution
which has been proposed by my colleague, Representative Kotler.
The Second World War was an extraordinary time during which
the ordinary rules of human conduct did not apply, and there is no
doubt that terrible events occurred and terrible suffering resulted. But
whatever happened —and we have no definitive proof of anything
other than the results of some sensational high- energy physics that no
one present, other than Dr. Kirino herself, understands—it would be a
mistake for us to become slaves to history, and to subject the present
to the control of the past.
The Japan of today is the most important ally of the United States
in the Pacific, if not the world, while the People's Republic of China
takes daily steps to challenge our interests in the region . Japan is vital
in our efforts to contain and confront the Chin ese threat.
It is ill- advised at best, and counterproductive at worst, for
Representative Kotler to introduce his Resolution at this time . The
Resolution will no doubt embarrass and dishearten our ally and give
encouragement and comfort to our challengers at a time when we
cannot afford to indulge in theatrical sentiments, premised upon
stories told by emotional witnesses who may have been experiencing
“ illusions, ” and I am quoting the words of Dr. Kirino, the creator of
the technology involved.
Again, I must call upon the Subcommittee to stop this destructive,
useless process.
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
giving me the chance to respond to Representative Hogart.
Representative Kotler:
It's easy to hide behind intransitive verbal formulations like
“ terrible events occurred” and “ suffering resulted. ” And I am sorry to
hear my honored colleague, a member of the United States Congress,
engage in the same shameful tactics of denial and evasion employed by
those who denied that the Holocaust was real.
/> Every successive Japanese government, with the encouragement
and complicity of the successive administrations in this country, has
refused to even acknowledge, let alone apologize for, the activities of
Unit 731 . In fact, for many years, the Unit's very existence was
unacknowledged. These denials and refusals to face Japanese atrocities
committed during the Second World War form a pattern of playing -down and denial of the war record, whether we are talking about the
so - called “ Comfort Women,” the Nanjing Massacre, or the forced
slave laborers of Korea and China. This pattern has harmed the
relationship of Japan with its Asian neighbors.
The issue of Unit 731 presents its unique challenges. Here, the
United States is not an uninterested third party. As an ally and close
friend of Japan, it is the duty of the United States to point out where
our friend has erred . But more than that, the United States played an
active role in helping the perpetrators of the crimes of Unit 731 escape
justi ce . General MacArthur granted the men of Unit 731 immunity to
get their experimental data. We are in part responsible for the denials
and the cover - ups because we valued the tainted fruits of those
atrocities more than we valued our own integrity. We have sinned as
well.
What I want to emphasize is that Representative Hogart has
misunderstood the Resolution . What the witnesses and I are asking
for, Mr. Chairman, is not some admission of guilt by the present
government of Japan or its people. What we are asking for is a
declaration from this body that it is the belief of the United States
Congress that the victims of Unit 731 should be honored and
remembered, and that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes be
condemned . There is no Bill of Attainder here, no corruption of blood .
We are not calling on Japan to pay compensation. All we are asking for
is a commitment to truth, a commitment to remember.
Like memorials to the Holocaust, the value of such a declaration is
simply a public affirmation of our common bond of humanity with the
victims, and our unity in standing against the ideology of evil and
barbarity of the Unit 731 butchers and the Japanese militarist society
that permitted and ordered such evil.
Now, I want to make it clear that “ Japan” is not a monolithic thing,
