Page 20 - Marutas of Unit 731

ere was hearsay about the complex’s inter ior. A local from the reg ion
stated the following, “We heard rumors of people having blood drawn in

there but we never went near the place. We were too afraid. When the

construction started, there were about forty houses in our village, and a lot

of people were driven out. About one person from each home was taken to

work on the construction. People were gathered from villages from all

around here, maybe about a thousand people in all. e only things we
worked on were the surrounding wall and the earthen walls. e Chines e

that worked on the buildings were brought in from somewhere, but we

didn’t know where. Aer ever ything was nished, those people were killed.”

Despite its secrecy, the word still got out that prisoners were being taken

from Chinese Communists as well as other “bandits” and other suspicious
people who were then subjected to tests. One such test was to drain

gradually the victims’ blood to see if death occurred from the lack of blood.

[11]
e unit drew 500 cc of blood from each prisoner ever y 3-5 days. As their
bodies grew weaker, they were dissected for further research. An average

prisoner lasted a maximum of a month.
Due to brutal winters faced by the Kwantung Army, they needed to nd

the best method for treating frostbite and increase their productivity. Ishii’s

team gathered human subjects and subjected them to freezing and

unfreezing in ver y cold weather. e exper iments sometimes included

obser ving test subjects whose limbs had been frozen and then severed. e
team reported to General Okamura Yasuji, Deputy Commander in Chief of

the Kwantung Army between 1933-1934, that the best way to treat frostbite

was to soak a limb in water at 37 deg rees Celsius. is conclusion was

reached aer limbs of the logs were frozen ever y year in Ishii’s Unit.

According to the December 28 testimony of witness Furuichi at the
Khabarovsk Trial, “Experiments in freezing human beings were per formed