So many 'marutas' died, and the Japanese soldiers were also dissected. I often wonder why on earth Unit 731 had done so many evil things?" asked a Japanese veteran who served at the notorious Japanese germ warfare army during World War II.
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The victims, referred to in Japanese as "marutas," or wooden logs, were deliberately infected with typhus, typhoid, cholera, anthrax and plague in addition to many other bacterial diseases to serve the goal of perfecting biological weapons. Some prisoners were then vivisected without anesthetic so that researchers could observe the effects of the disease on the human body.
Hideo Shimizu, 93, is the only living veteran of Unit 731 willing to publicly expose the crimes of the Japanese bacteriology unit, which killed thousands of Chinese civilians and Allied prisoners of war at its sprawling complex in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, from the late 1930s to the end of the war.
The extreme cruelty and horrors left indelible memories on the ex-serviceman after he spent four months in the unit.
"This teenager was me," said Shimizu, pointing at a black-and-white group photo that features the Unit 731 Youth Corps members and their instructors.
"I was born in Nagano prefecture. At the end of March 1945, when I was 14 years old, one of my school teachers referred me to the army in Harbin to serve as a 'technician on probation.' I knew nothing about what the army was or what it did specifically. This photo was taken when I joined the team," Shimizu told Xinhua at his home in central Japan.