BEIJING, March 24 -- Large-scale salvage work will be conducted on the remains of the notorious Japanese germ warfare site from World War II in a bid to turn it into a remembrance park.

    The site, in a suburb of Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, was where the secretive Japanese detachment Unit 731 conducted biochemical experiments on live people.

    Local researchers said work would begin to be carried out on the rundown area this year, with the aim of turning it into a special area to remember the victims within the next decade.

    Wang Peng, curator of the 731 Exhibition Hall, which is built upon the old headquarters of Unit 731, said there were 23 relic buildings listed under a protection schedule on the site. He added only a small proportion of them were well preserved at present.

    "We have to act quickly," said Wang. "We will have to spend an extra 5 million yuan (US$620,000) if we delay by one more year because of wind erosion."

    The National Development and Reform Commission has already allotted 30 million yuan (US$3.7 million) for the project and the municipal government of Harbin has also earmarked 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million).

    Wang said that even more money might be needed.

    Protection work on "Shiguan Lou," the former dormitory of Japanese military officials at that time, and the dismantling of three residential buildings in the centre, will be the priority of the salvage project.

    Construction of a remembrance square and the relocation of a nearby middle school to make way for a new exhibition hall will also be started soon.

    The site has the largest number of germ warfare buildings still standing in the world, said Jin Min, a researcher from Harbin Municipal Academy of Social Sciences.

    "They are evidence of the crime the Japanese invaders committed in China at that time, and also a witness to the pain and suffering the war brought on human beings," he said.

    Jin, who is an expert on Unit 731 studies, said that he hoped to add some other elements to the relic.

    He proposes to build a forest of steles bearing the names of those who died on the site, and another large stele inscribed with the confessions of former members from Unit 731.

    He said that the number of the steles in the forest should be no less than 3,000, as current evidence suggests that at least 3,000 people, mostly Chinese civilians as well as Russians, Mongolians, Koreans and some POWs from the United States and Europe, died in experiments on the site between 1939 and 1945.

    "It will be a venerable sight and also serve as a place where visitors could pay tribute to the dead," he said.

    Citing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan the reminder of the first atomic bomb explosion on August 6, 1945 as an example, he hopes that the site would also be included on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

    "It would be a shame and huge pity if we just left the site to decay," he said.

(Source: China Daily)