Chapter 67 Six Japanese war criminals
In June and July, I went to Shenyang with a few companions to attend a military court and testify to the court for the trial of Japanese war criminals.
It is known from the newspaper that more than a thousand Japanese war criminals were detained in China, some in Fushun and some in Taiyuan. They were all criminals during the Japanese imperialist war of aggression against China.In June and July of 1956, forty-five were sentenced to imprisonment in Taiyuan and Shenyang respectively, and the rest were exempted from prosecution, and the Red Cross Society of China assisted them to return to China.Those who were tried in Shenyang were war criminals detained in Fushun, a total of 36 people were tried in two batches.Some of them were known to me when I was in Manchukuo, and some of them were seen on the forum of the Fushun Management Office.Tadashi Gukai, the former deputy director of the General Affairs Office of the Puppet Manchukuo, was one of them.He and Wubu Liuzang, chief of the Puppet General Affairs Department, were the counterparts of me and the four puppet Manchukuo ministers who testified.Gu Hai was the first defendant to appear in court.He was later sentenced to eighteen years in prison by the court.
When I walked into this courtroom where the aggressors were tried, I suddenly remembered the victory in the Korean War, the victory in the Geneva negotiations, and the diplomatic relations since the founding of the People's Republic of China.Today, the trial of Japanese war criminals on Chinese soil is unprecedented in history.
In the days when the Volunteer Army and the Korean People’s Army were winning battles together, I only thought that I had no other way out except to plead guilty to the Chinese people and ask for forgiveness.When the Japanese war criminals were tried this time, what appeared in my mind was no longer a question of the way out, but a sense of national pride that far surpassed personal questions!
No, I got more than national pride.From this huge incident, I thought of many more questions.
Furukai had this to say in his final statement before sentencing:
"In the whole of Northeast China, there is not an inch of land that has not left traces of the brutal Japanese imperialists' atrocities. The crimes of imperialism are my crimes. I deeply realize that I am a criminal who flagrantly violated international law and humanitarian principles and committed crimes against the Chinese people." I sincerely apologize to the war criminals who committed major crimes. For an intolerable criminal like me, the Chinese people have always treated me humanitarianly and given me a calm understanding of myself in the past six years. Because of these, I regained my conscience and rationality. I know the path that a real person should walk. I think it was given to me by the Chinese people, and I don’t know how to thank the Chinese people.”
I still remember to this day that after I testified in court, when he was asked to state his opinion, he bowed deeply and said with tears:
"What the witnesses said is entirely true."
This scene can't help but remind me of the Tokyo International Tribunal.There, Japanese war criminals clamored through their lawyers, attacked witnesses, and tried every means to cover up their crimes in order to reduce the punishment.And here, not only Furukai, not only my opponent who testified, but all the war criminals who were tried have all pleaded guilty and served their sentences.
Regarding Japanese war criminals, my younger brothers and brother-in-laws, especially Lao Wan, who has a good memory, can't finish talking about it for a few days.They participated in translating a large number of confession materials of Japanese war criminals from the time of reporting and pleading guilty.After the brothers-in-law were released, this work was undertaken by Pu Jie and Lao Bang.Since 1956, I have been hearing many stories about Japanese war criminals from them.
There was a Japanese war criminal who was a former army general. When the procuratorate began investigating in 1954, perhaps because of his fear or hostility, they could not find much from him.Even at the conference, when he was accused by his subordinate officers and soldiers, he still hadn't let go of his airs as a general.But this time in court, he admitted to commanding his troops to commit six massacres of peaceful residents in places such as Eastern Hebei and Jun County in Henan.For example, in October 1942, a regiment under him massacred more than 1,280 residents and burned more than 1,000 private houses in Panjiadai Village.He admitted all of these facts before the court.After he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, he told reporters: "When making the judgment, I judged according to my past crimes, and believed that China should of course punish people like me who violated humanity and violated public international law. The death penalty." He also said that when investigating the facts of the crime, it was very correct and fair, and they conducted the investigation using methods that they had never seen in the old society.He said that although there was no room for defense for his crime, the court still sent defenders, and the indictment was sent to him a few days ago. He felt that this was a respect for his personality.Speaking of crimes, he said: "When I think that I have killed many Chinese people and made life difficult for their bereaved families, and now it is the relatives of the victims who are taking care of me, my heart is like a knife. generally."
There was a former resident of Japan who was released without prosecution.My third brother-in-law once turned over a letter from Japan, which was written by a war criminal who returned to China on the same boat as this resident. I was very annoyed by the past crimes, so I interviewed him on the ship, hoping that he would say something different from others, because the praise and gratitude of war criminals for New China has already made some reporters impatient.They didn't get anything they expected from the Colonel. The reporter asked him: "Why do you still say those words? Are you still afraid of China?" He replied: "I am sitting on a Japanese ship now, and I have nothing to do with China. What are you afraid of? What I said is just the truth."
The third brother-in-law used to be the team leader of the ward. He met a Japanese war criminal who lived in the ward. He made trouble all day long, did not abide by the rules of the prison, and often troubled the nurses and guards.When the release was announced and the farewell party was held, he suddenly burst into tears and publicly told his mistakes.There is also a patient, although he is not as troublesome as this little soldier, he does not want to plead guilty at all.What he had was rectal cancer, and he was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment due to the deterioration of his condition. He underwent two operations and had an artificial anus, and the doctor transfused his own blood for him, which saved him from life.After he was discharged from the hospital, he told a public meeting how he had killed and tortured Chinese people in the past, and compared how the Chinese people rescued him when he was critically ill.He cried while speaking on the stage, and the people in the audience also cried while listening...
One day, when we were leveling the grounds and building flower beds, we dug up a bone from a pit in the yard with a bullet hole in the skull.Both Lao Yuan and Lao Xian, who had studied western medicine, judged that the deceased was a young girl.Later, Lao Wan translated an article written by a Japanese war criminal, who was the former warden of Fushun Prison. He described the scene of hell when patriots were imprisoned at that time: At that time, there were only sounds of torture, shackles, and screams; At that time, the place was smelly and dirty, the walls were covered with ice in winter, and mosquitoes and flies were everywhere in summer. At that time, each prisoner was only given a small bowl of sorghum rice every day, and they had to do hard labor all day long. Many people were beaten to death and died of exhaustion.He said: "Now there are only singing, music, and laughter here. If someone goes outside the wall, he will never think that this is a prison; now there is heating in winter and screens in summer. In the past, the labor factory became a boiler room and a bakery. , the former dark room where patriots were tortured is now the infirmary's pharmacy, the former warehouse is now repaired as a bathroom, and now their personality is respected, they can study every day, they can play musical instruments, they can paint, they can play ball, who would believe here Is it a prison?" He said: "Now China is building a cause that brings happiness to all mankind, let us follow the right path, stop committing crimes, and start a new life."
Many articles written by war criminals have said that when they were sent to China by the Soviet Union, they were terrified, unconvinced, and even hated.Some people have the same mentality as me. When they first came here, they only used their own way of thinking to speculate, and they didn't understand why the Chinese people treated them like this.When they saw the boiler room being built, they thought it was a murder room, and when they saw the building of the clinic and the installation of medical equipment, they thought they were going to use captives for experiments, just like they did.Still others see leniency and humane treatment as weakness.There was a gendarme who was regarded as a "good Japanese man" by Japanese war criminals when he was escorted from the Soviet Union to China, and he yelled and cursed all day long.The solicitor asked him to talk, and he stood sideways in front of the cadres and said, "I was captured by the Soviet army. What qualifications do you have to ask me?" The solicitor said to him, "We Chinese people did not invite you to China comes to kill people, but it has the right to pursue your blood debt! You are the one who has no right to speak now. Think about it for yourself. People should do something beneficial to mankind when they come to the world. What did you do?" He thought he was going to be punished and give him another chance to show his strength, but he just told him to go like this and ignored him again.Soon, news of the victory of the Chinese People's Volunteers on the Korean battlefield came one after another, and he stopped making troubles, because he knew that reasonable people are not weak, but barbarism is just a sign of weakness.He became silent and finally spoke out of his crime on his own initiative.
Before these stories of Japanese war criminals came out, almost everyone knew about the changes in Japanese war criminals.But at that time, I was only thinking about my own problems, just like reading newspapers and family letters before, and I didn't have the heart to think seriously.In fact, from around 1954, changes in Japanese war criminals have been continuously revealed.I might as well copy some relevant passages from Pu Jie's incomplete 1955 diary to illustrate (the words in square brackets are my notes):
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