Japanese scholar calls for more truth-revealing programs on Japan's wartime atrocities

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A Japanese scholar specializing in the history of Japan's germ warfare during World War II said he hoped the Unit 731 documentary recently aired by broadcaster NHK could become a wake-up call for the Japanese to learn more about the war atrocities.

Masataka Mori was a professor of irenology at Shizuoka University before his retirement in March this year. He has spent over 30 years in researching on the notorious Unit 731 and Japan's germ warfare against other countries, and has interviewed many Unit 731 members and victims in an effort to recover the historical truth.

Mori watched the NHK documentary aired on Aug. 13 titled "The Truth of Harbin Unit 731," which revealed the outrageous crimes committed by Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development base of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.

Unit 731, set up around 1936, conducted experiments on live human beings to test germ-releasing bombs and chemical bombs, among other atrocities. Its victims were mostly Chinese, while a small number of them were Soviet, Mongolian, Korean people and soldiers of the Allied Forces taken captive.

"Japanese media seldom touch the subject of Japan's war crimes. The NHK documentary is amazing (in revealing the war crimes)," Mori said, adding that what's particularly significant was that it made public for the first time in Japan the audio records of the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials in 1949.

"Written records of the trials have been published in Japan before. But Japan and some other countries have been refusing to recognize the records, mudding them as propaganda by former Soviet Union. But the audio records are iron-clad evidence for the war atrocities," he said.

The scholar said the Japanese government, though admitting there were army units focusing on developing germ weapons in the war, denied that lethal human experimentation and germ warfare happened.

"The NHK documentary, through testimonies of officers of Unit 731, delivered a vigorous blow to the lies of the Japanese authorities," he said.

Mori has visited China dozens of times since 1994 to interview survivors of germ warfare. His research also corroborated what has been revealed in the NHK documentary.

While speaking highly of the documentary, Mori also said that the documentary could do more by, for instance, including the voices of the Chinese survivors of germ warfare in it, to better expose the war atrocities.

In Japan, historical textbooks rarely mention Unit 731, and "very few Japanese people, especially among the younger generations, know about the unit or what it has done," Mori said.

As NHK is an influential mainstream media, Mori said that he hoped the documentary could help expose more Japanese people to the truth about Unit 731 and what Japan did to China during the invasive war in the 1930s and 1940s.

"I hope media with conscience could follow up and make more such programs, such as programs on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and the 'Comfort Women' issue, so as to further convey the historical truth to the Japanese people," he said.

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