Page 107 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

permission. The questioners tortured him by tying him to a beam by the hands or the feet.
Nevertheless, Demchenko gave no information. I then decided to have him physically
exterminated, and sent him to Detachment 731 for this purpose....

The actual despatch of the doomed Soviet citizens was carried out by gendarme Shioda,
who made arrangements by telephone with the gendarme in Detachment 731 about the time.
Detachment 731 always sent their own motor vehicle for the people—a covered car holding
about 20 people without belongings. In conformity with the instructions of the Harbin
J.M.M., I ordered gendarme Shioda to send people to Detachment 731 without their personal
belongings. These belongings were sent to the 4th Division of the Harbin J .M.M., and this
division used the belongings, particularly army uniforms, for the needs of the Mission.

Dressed in these uniforms, Japanese spies were sent into Soviet Union territory. I learned
this from members of the 4th Division. From whom in particular I do not now remember. A
list of the names of all the people we sent to Detachment 731 was made in two copies; one
copy was taken by the man from Detachment 731 and the other was kept at the Hogoin camp.

I myself did not ask the Detachment 731 men for a document certifying the receipt of the
prisoners. During the whole period that I served at the Hogoin camp there was not a single
case of any of the people despatched returning to the Hogoin camp.

This circumstance served to convince me still more of the truth of what I had heard, that in
Detachment 731 Soviet citizens died from the tests made on them of the action of lethal
bacteria and of poison gases.

Question: What do you wish to add to your testimony?

Answer: I have nothing more to add.

The record has been taken down faithfully from my words and was read to me in Russian
and in Japanese, which I confirm by my signature.

Yamagishi

INTERROGATOR

Member of the staff

of the Office of the Ministry

for Internal Affairs

for the Khabarovsk Territory,

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