(July 3, 2014)

After the end of WWII, when Japanese war criminals were apprehended and interrogated, they wrote confessions. And now China’s State Archives Administration has started to release online via the Internet the written confessions of 45 Japanese war criminals, one a day, starting on July 3, 2014. The first admits to killing at least 5,000 Chinese civilians.

In the first, dated 1954 and 38 pages long, Keiku Suzuki, described as a lieutenant general and commander of Japan’s 117th Division, admitted ordering a Colonel Taisuke to “burn down the houses of about 800 households and slaughter 1,000 Chinese peasants in a mop-up operation” in the Tangshan area, according to the official translation.

Among a litany of other crimes with a total toll in the thousands, he also confessed that he “cruelly killed 235 Chinese peasants seeking refuge in a village near Lujiayu”.

He also “ordered the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Squad to spread cholera virus in three or four villages”.

Suzuki was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the court and released in 1963.

See the link, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftCx4HEc2Z4, for a video description of some of Suzuki’s crimes, as well as additional background information.

The purpose of releasing these confessions is not for the call of revenge, but remind the public of the importance of peace, because these archives are the tragic proof of how war can release men’s inhumanity to men.  These 45 confessions totaling over 2,000 pages are just the tip of the iceberg of evidence on Japan’s enormous war crimes in China.