Page 36 - Unit 731

3
After the War, Stories from Victims’ Families

‘Special transfer’ or 特移扱 (tokuitatsukai in Japanese) was a unique term used by the Kempeitai, Police Unit, Security Unit, and Special Agencies of Unit
731. It originated with human experimentation in Unit 731: the Japanese captors referred to those who were specially transferred as ‘luggage’ and
‘maruta’. These people suffered capture, torture, and imprisonment, and finally died due to experimentation, vivisection, bacterial infection, and other
cruelties.

Introduction to Special Transfer

What is Special Transfer?
Takeo Tachibana, one-time head of the Kempeitai in Jiamusi, said:

… when I was the leader in the Jiamusi Kempeitai, we often chose prisoners from the Kempeitai to Unit 731 for experiments. We followed the order of the Kempeitai headquarters and pre-trialled
them. We did not refer their cases to court but sent them directly to Unit 731. This was a special method, which was called the special transfer. 1
Former Kanto Kempeitai vice team leader Torao Yoshifusa explained in Fushun War Criminals Management Centre:
Since the Mukden Incident, Japanese imperialism allowed Japanese soldiers to kill Chinese civilians who provoked protests among Chinese society. The Japanese imperialists had to change their
strategy toward the Chinese. On the surface, they announced the abolition of serious punishment of Chinese civilians, but later on, a secret agreement was reached among Kanto Kempeitai Commander
Ueda Kenkichi, Staff Hideki Tojo, Army Surgeon Shirō Ishii, Staff Nagaoka Machitake, Kanto Kempeitai Commander Tanaka Shizuichi, Chief of Police Unit Kajisako Jiro and Officer Matsuura
Kokki that arrested Chinese civilians who fought the Japanese Army should be sent to the Ishii division for human experimentation use. 2
Victims sent by special transfer included Chinese, Russians, and Koreans. They were prisoners of war from the Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalist Party),
the Chinese Communist Party, guerrillas, and the Russian Red Army, Chinese and Korean intelligence operatives hired by Russia, and civilians including
peasants, workers, and merchants.
Undifferentiated Ultimatum: Standard of Special Transfer
The Kanto Kempeitai and its sub-groups were major participants in special transfer. On 26 January 1938, the Kanto Kempeitai headquarters published a
command document about special transfer, and on 12 March 1943, the headquarters further announced ‘Ultimatum of Special Transfer’, which set
comprehensive regulations about special transfer.
The new regulations stated ‘those criminals who will be released or soon be released after brief confinement by the court’, ‘those committing no serious
crimes but not recommended to be released’, ‘people who have no fixed residence and relatives’, and ‘opium addicted individuals’ should be sent to Unit
731. The new standard for special transfer was so broad that it failed to restrict the power of the Kempeitai, which subsequently could arrest and kill
Chinese criminals and civilians indifferently, and could decide who should be a special transfer for Unit 731.
Special transfer as recorded in the collected documents went through the following process. First, Unit 731, in order to conduct human
experimentations, needed a large number of ‘testers’. The Unit communicated that number to the headquarters of the Kempeitai in the Guandong region
(Northeastern China), the Kempeitai and its sub-groups arrested civilians in secret for the Harbin Kempeitai, and victims were specially transferred to Unit
731 in Harbin. To receive a large number of ‘testers’, the Unit set up a Kempei office that initiated contact with Harbin Kempeitai.
Sadao Koshi, Ishii’s driver at Unit 731, wrote in his book Hinomaru ha akai namida (Bloody Tears on Hinomaru) about four locations to receive
‘testers’: the Kempei office near Harbin train station, the intelligence agency in Harbin, the headquarters of Harbin Kempeitai, and the Japanese Consulate
3
in Harbin. Victims were kept in the special prison and could be released as ‘living testers’ for human experimentations at any time. It is particularly
shocking that the Harbin Consulate, the highest diplomatic authority representing Japan, acted as a secret connecting point and hub for ‘testers’ exchange,
equipped with an underground prison that kept ‘maruta’ for Unit 731.
Revealing the Truth about Special Transfer
Two important publications have exposed the details of the special transfer. The first one is in Russian entitled yianskayia Krasnayia Armiyia. Primorskiĭ
voennyĭ okrug. Voennyĭ tribunal (Trial Materials of Preparation and Use of Bacterial Weapons by Former Japanese Army), published by Moscow Foreign
Languages Publishing Raboche-Krest in 1950; the second book is in Chinese, Xijunzhan yu Duqizhan (Bacterial War and Poison Gas War), published by
the State Archives Administration in China in 1989. The two publications recorded oral narratives about special transfers from eyewitnesses Yutaka Mio,
Torao Yoshifusa, and Tetsuichi Kamitsubo.
That the Japanese army carried out special transfer was confirmed in the 1950s, but there was no official written record of it until October 1997, when
Chengmin Jin discovered a document in the Heilongjiang Province Archives. Scholars began to search out families of the victims named in those records.
The families of victims of special transfers are a large group of individuals. When I contacted them, I found that most of them are living in ordinary
lives but suffer deeply in their hearts. They searched for their family members but failed numerous times. Some of them only saw pictures of their fathers,
and some remembered only a vague image of their fathers. A number of them died without knowing where their fathers went or whether they were alive.
People who live in the post-war era may not remember the disaster brought by the Second World War. For families of victims, war brought perpetual
nightmare and pain (see Fig. 8).

When History Encounters Reality: Victims Meet Perpetrators