吉林公布档案史料 日本侵华铁证如山
The provincial archives in Northeast China’s Jilin Province has made public 89 documents that were written by Japanese officers and reveal crimes committed by the Japanese army during its invasion of China.
A total of 89 wartime documents made public on Friday show details of atrocities Japanese troops committed in China during World War Two (WWII). The documents represent only a small portion of the nearly 100,000 wartime Japanese files retrieved underground during construction work in the early 1950s, said Yin Huai, president of the Jilin Provincial Archives in Changchun, capital of Jilin Province. Ninety percent of the files are in Japanese. (Xinhua/Lin Hong)
The records released by the Jilin Province Archives were discovered during a construction project during the 1950s. The documents were discarded by the Japanese army during its hasty retreat from Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, after Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945.
Although the documents are in fragments or incomplete, experts from Jilin’s archives managed to restore and translate large numbers of them. They are official reports and letters that detail eight different atrocities, including the Nanjing Massacre, in which 300,000 civilians were rounded up and murdered, human testing of chemical and biological weapons conducted by the notorious Unit 731, the use of Chinese women as sex slaves and the maltreatment to US and British prisoners of war.
A total of 89 wartime documents made public on Friday show details of atrocities Japanese troops committed in China during World War Two (WWII). The documents represent only a small portion of the nearly 100,000 wartime Japanese files retrieved underground during construction work in the early 1950s, said Yin Huai, president of the Jilin Provincial Archives in Changchun, capital of Jilin Province. Ninety percent of the files are in Japanese. (Xinhua/Lin Hong)
"Some Japanese deny the facts of the Nanjing Massacre, and argue that the population in Nanjing was only around 200 thousand prior to the massacre. However, this document written by a Japanese officer shows that the population before the massacre was around one million," said Zhang Yujie, the archives of Jilin Province.
"These documents are of great historical and research value. They show the real picture and are an authentic reference of the crimes the Japanese army committed in China during WWII," said professor Su Zhiliang, Shanghai normal University.
The 89 documents form the core of a newly published book published by the Jilin Provincial Archives titled "Irrefutable evidence - New documents on Japan’s Invasion of China". The archives says the book and the public display of the documents were complied so the truth can be known and never forgotten.
