The Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial

3607 members of Unit 731, 12 brought to trial at Khabarovsk. Did justice ever prevail?

Although the west often dismissed the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial as "Communist Propaganda," it was the first time the scientists from the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department" of the Imperial Japanese Army(IJA) came forward with the crimes they committed during World War 2. The Khabarovsk War Crime Trials were hearings held between 25-31 December 1949 in the Soviet Union's Stalinist courts, and it lasted for five days. It was after the 10-month long Nuremberg trials and the two-year-long Far Eastern War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo. Although it was a shorter war crimes trial, it unearthed cruel biological weapon development and human experimentation practices by the Japanese Imperial Army. This book contains confessions from the scientists who worked in Unit 100 and Unit 731 regarding their duties. Here is an example from the interrogation as documented,

"At the beginning of September 1944, two Russians were shot dead in my presence by a gendarme at the cattle cemetery, and were buried there. This was done

on the orders of Lieutenant Nakazima. They were shot because no more experiments could be performed on them in view of their exhausted state and unsuitability for further experimentation."

Another testimony,

". . . An expedition against the Chinese troops was carried out in the middle of 1942, with General Ishii in charge. ... As a preliminary to this expedition, 130 kilograms of paratyphoid and anthrax bacteria were prepared under my direction, again on the orders of Major Suzuki. According to my information, fleas were also used as epidemic carriers in this expedition. ... To carry out the expedition, General Ishii left with a party for Central China, where the Japanese troops were retreating at that time. The members of the expedition took advantage of the retreat to disseminate bacteria in the abandoned territory in order to cause outbreaks of epidemic among the advancing Chinese troops."

This book will contain not only the testimonies from defendants at interrogation, but also from witnesses and their colleagues in Unit 731 and Unit 100. It uncovers their experimentation at the ANTA testing grounds where they were testing new weapons, human experimentation, the cause of bubonic plague outbreak in China, as well as anthrax and glanders attacks on Russia.