HARBIN, June 6 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition depicting the horrible atrocities committed by the notorious Unit 731 of Japanese Imperial Forces during the World War II could be held in Japan within the year.
Wang Peng, curator of the Unit 731 Crimes Exhibition Hall, said he's applied for permission to hold the exhibition in Japan. Exhibits will include pictures and items that were used in Unit 731's torture cells.
Unit 731 conducted extremely cruel biochemical experiments mainly on Chinese civilians to develop ghastly germ warfare weapons that could spread the bubonic plague, typhoid, anthrax and cholera.
Located in suburban Harbin in northeast China, the 1,500-square-meter exhibition hall was built in the former headquarters of the secretive Japanese detachment code named Unit 731, which conducted unthinkable experiments not only on locals but on prisoners from the Soviet Union, Korea and Britain.
"We will show visitors via the exhibits the truth of Japan's brutality against Chinese and other people," Wang said.
The exhibits detail a chamber of horrors showing experiments that included freezing people to death to determine how long it took and injecting others with different strains of deadly viruses to catalogue their agonizing deaths. Artifacts show that many people were burned alive in furnaces.
The exhibition hall curator believes more than 200,000 people across China were killed or injured in germ warfare conducted by Japanese invading troops.
Japan has never fully recognized the extent of the atrocities nor offered atonement to the victims.
Japanese troops blew up the base in 1945. The secret remained undiscovered until a Japanese journalist exposed the truth in the 1980s.
"Although some right-wingers in Japan remain in denial of the holocaust, most Japanese people are peace-lovers who look at history as mirror onto the future," Wang said, adding that up to 30,000 Japanese visitors and scholars come to visit the exhibition every year.
Holding such an exhibition in Japan will help Japanese people see the evidence so they can more objectively learn about their history, said Xin Peiling, a researcher with the History Research Center of the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences.
"Along with the exhibition, we will also make use of websites, picture albums and TV programs to tell more people in the world the truth about the history of Japan's aggression against its Asian neighbors," Wang said. Enditem
