Chapter 65 Section 62 Bamboo at the bottom
Philip, I've been thinking about "crime and punishment" recently.
When you were born, in the late autumn of 1989, I was lying in the hospital in Frankfurt, breastfeeding and watching TV. It was an unbelievable picture: millions of East Germans paraded through the streets of Berlin, and then rushed through The horror of the Berlin Wall was broken, and people climbed to the top of the wall to cheer, and many people hugged each other and cried bitterly.In that situation, you sleep in my arms, long eyelashes, sweet breath.The smell of milk from the newborn baby and the cheering and crying crowd are really strange experiences.
When it was quiet at night, I could hear the hissing of the fluorescent lights above my head.
Later, people slowly began to investigate the issue of "crime and punishment": the people fled, the East German soldiers guarding the wall shot, and more than a hundred people died in the corner. Do you think these soldiers themselves were guilty?All the crimes are on their chiefs who make decisions?Or is each individual responsible for his own individual actions?
The high-level decision-makers of the East German Communist Party have always said that they require the guards to prevent people from leaving the country, but they have never issued an order to "kill the fugitives" to the guards.As a result, many court judgments convict individual soldiers.
Did you know, Philip, it was not until 2007 that I found a military document in the information bag of a former city guard, which read: "Facing fugitives, use weapons without hesitation, Even with women and children, because traitors often use women and children."
When this document appeared, my nursing babies were already eighteen years old, and many soldiers had already been sentenced.
I mentioned Ke Jingxing, a Taiwanese surveillance officer, to you on the phone yesterday.He was sentenced to ten years in prison for the crime that he and a dozen other Taiwan soldiers massacred forty-six Anglo-Australian captives in the final months of Japan's known defeat.The Japanese captain who gave the order admitted in court that he was the one who ordered it and took the responsibility for the crime, but those Taiwanese who were ordered to do it were still sentenced to heavy sentences.
Did the Japanese military, like the Communist Party of East Germany, also say that we have never issued an order to "kill prisoners"?
I found such a document in the collection of the War Memorial in Canberra, Australia. If you don’t understand it, it doesn’t matter. I will translate it for you.
You know, Japan's surrender was spread all over the world on August 11th, and this document was issued on August 1st, ordering "extraordinary measures" to the directors of the prisoner camps.Translated, the instruction said: Under the current situation, in case of enemy bombing, fire, etc., if the situation is critical and it is necessary to evacuate to nearby schools, warehouses and other buildings immediately, the prisoners should be compressed and imprisoned at the current location. And in the highest state of alert, ready for final disposal.
The timing and method of disposal are as follows:
opportunity
In principle, the disposal shall be carried out according to the order of the superior.However, if there are any of the following situations, it must be handled according to personal judgment:
A. Group riots, which must be suppressed with the use of weapons.
B. When escaping from the camp and becoming an enemy force.
method
A. Regardless of the method of individual destruction or group disposal, after judging the situation at the time, use gunpowder weapon blasting, poison gas, poison, drowning, beheading and other methods for disposal.
B. No matter what the situation is, the principle should be to prevent any soldiers from escaping, to wipe them out completely, and to leave no traces behind.
This document is really frightening to read. Isn't "extraordinary measures", "final disposal", and "total annihilation" just like killing people?Isn't this the order Ke Jingxing received?Sugita Tsuruo, who directly ordered him to commit suicide, and Ke Jingxing, who was ordered to do it, was sentenced to ten years in prison, but how should the responsibility of the decision maker be calculated according to the principle of proportionality?
I kept thinking of the British boy who shouted for help but was stabbed to death by Taiwanese soldiers with bayonets—would he also be like Bill, lying about eighteen years old when he was only fifteen?
Or, like my Phillips, nineteen?
Who should be responsible for killing him?
Did I tell you I found Bill in Australia?After returning to his hometown from the prison camp in 1945, he became a professional carpenter, helping others design furniture and make doors and windows.He made sporadic sketches in prison camps and later redrawn them.I said I wanted to include some sketches of his prison camps in the book, and he was very happy.
I asked him, "When you were tortured in the Sandakan prison camp, did you know that most of the monitors wearing Japanese uniforms were Taiwanese soldiers from the Japanese colonies?"
He said, "I know, because they are often beaten and slapped by Japanese officers. To be honest, the attitude of the Japanese towards these Formosa monitors is actually the same as the attitude of the monitors towards us prisoners."
"Then," I asked again, "if I say that these Formosa monitors are in a sense also a kind of 'victims'—distorted and deformed by the manipulation of the colonial system and values, would you object?"
He emailed back immediately: "Professor, of course I have no objection. They can't help themselves either."
I asked him what impressed him most about those Formosa watchmen.
He said, "Once two British men and I escaped from a prisoner camp and were hunted back. We all thought we were going to die this time, because we had all seen prisoners beaten to death. Moreover, if they were not killed on the spot, the wounds would become inflamed. If we don’t take medicine, we will die within a few days of festering. However, some Formosa soldiers were ordered to discipline us. They are very young and relatively small. So it was lighter. We were lucky."
"Is it possible," I said, "that these Formosa watchmen let you go on purpose?"
"It's hard to say," he replied, "to manipulate is to tie a branch in a certain direction and position, twist it into a certain shape, but I believe that human nature is like your oriental bamboo, which is resilient. Untie it and it will spring back. But, if you happen to be on the bottom, you won't be able to get out no matter how hard you struggle."
This document is really frightening to read. Isn't "extraordinary measures", "final disposal", and "total annihilation" just like killing people?Isn't this the order Ke Jingxing received?Sugita Tsuruo, who directly ordered him to commit suicide, and Ke Jingxing, who was ordered to do it, was sentenced to ten years in prison, but how should the responsibility of the decision maker be calculated according to the principle of proportionality?
I kept thinking of the British boy who shouted for help but was stabbed to death by Taiwanese soldiers with bayonets—would he also be like Bill, lying about eighteen years old when he was only fifteen?
Or, like my Phillips, nineteen?
Who should be responsible for killing him?
Did I tell you I found Bill in Australia?After returning to his hometown from the prison camp in 1945, he became a professional carpenter, helping others design furniture and make doors and windows.He made sporadic sketches in prison camps and later redrawn them.I said I wanted to include some sketches of his prison camps in the book, and he was very happy.
I asked him, "When you were tortured in the Sandakan prison camp, did you know that most of the monitors wearing Japanese uniforms were Taiwanese soldiers from the Japanese colonies?"
He said, "I know, because they are often beaten and slapped by Japanese officers. To be honest, the attitude of the Japanese towards these Formosa monitors is actually the same as the attitude of the monitors towards us prisoners."
"Then," I asked again, "if I say that these Formosa monitors are in a sense also a kind of 'victims'—distorted and deformed by the manipulation of the colonial system and values, would you object?"
He emailed back immediately: "Professor, of course I have no objection. They can't help themselves either."
I asked him what impressed him most about those Formosa watchmen.
He said, "Once two British men and I escaped from a prisoner camp and were hunted back. We all thought we were going to die this time, because we had all seen prisoners beaten to death. Moreover, if they were not killed on the spot, the wounds would become inflamed. If we don’t take medicine, we will die within a few days of festering. However, some Formosa soldiers were ordered to discipline us. They are very young and relatively small. So it was lighter. We were lucky."
"Is it possible," I said, "that these Formosa watchmen let you go on purpose?"
"It's hard to say," he replied, "to manipulate is to tie a branch in a certain direction and position, twist it into a certain shape, but I believe that human nature is like your oriental bamboo, which is resilient. Untie it and it will spring back. But, if you happen to be on the bottom, you won't be able to get out no matter how hard you struggle."