Page 46 - Unit 731

war and for distorting historical fact.
War and Medicine, an exhibition panel brochure prepared by The Research Society for 15 Years’ War and Japanese Medical Science and Service,
contains the following:

The ‘reflection from an original point of view’ will never be possible without reflecting upon the morality of Japanese medicine during the early Showa period and the Fifteen Years’ War to the
following post-war period when medical science and practices in Japan began to develop and modernize. Above all, the participation of the Japan Medical Association (JMA) the Japanese Association
of Medical Sciences (JAMS) in the Fifteen Years’ War and the ‘human experimentation’ and ‘vivisections’ performed by Japanese medical scholars/doctors call out for our inevitable and sincere
repentance, considering the inheritance of the post-war medicine from such practices.… During these 60 years, almost no commitment has been made to face this issue and the like seriously and to
learn a lesson therefrom. 20
In September 1947, medical associations of forty-five countries jointly organised The World Medical Association. Representatives noted members from
Germany and Japan had committed atrocities during the Second World War, and therefore adopted a resolution that medical associations from Germany
and Japan were required to submit an introspection announcement when they joined the Association.
In 1951, the Japan Medical Association joined the World Medical Association, having announced that ‘as the representative institution of Japanese
doctors, JMA, on this occasion, reprimands the violence inflicted upon the people of the enemy countries, and condemns the alleged and in a few cases
actually performed cruelties on patients’.
War and Medicine stated: ‘This statement, although the only official comment on these issues, is not yet oriented towards a serious reflection on the
wartime behaviour of the Japanese medical profession, nor to a consequent reconsideration for the future of the ideal/morals of medical science and
practice’.
In its persistence in evading these issues, Japan’s medical community seems to look forward to forgetting those medical atrocities over time, to look
forward to the moment that medical war criminals represented by the Unit 731 and their descendants will be relieved of being asked for introspection.
Given the ambiguity concerning the atrocities, the statement by the Japan Medical Association in 1951 was no more than a false recognition and an
indifferent promise to the general public in order to join the World Medical Association.
In his article, ‘The Medical Crime in the Fifteen Years’ War and Our Task Today’, Shozo Azami, a Japanese scholar, says: ‘… the subordinate officers
who follow the order of the superior officer are liable to punishment when they know it is against martial law and civil law.… Although the Nuremberg
code had not yet been established at the time of the Fifteen Years’ War, “never do harm to human life” is the basic principle of judgment for doctors and
medical scientists’. 21
In 2003, an American professor, Michael J. Franzblau, urged Japan’s medical circle do genuine introspection on Unit 731, saying ‘to look away from
the Unit 731 issue is to degrade yourselves’.
At the end of his article, Shozo Azami writes:
What we demand from the present Japanese medical establishment is to reflect the fact that they have avoided facing squarely the medical crimes during the war, and to think deeply and seriously
about what that fact implies … after the disclosure of Unit 731 issues, the reason why Japanese medical scientists and doctors have still shielded them is probably related to the inferiority complex that
they have kept the issues secret in their hearts. Why do they feel inferior? It is because they actually knew what the Ishii Unit was doing in the past, which was a public secret. If this is why they keep
silent, then their silence is indeed a crime. 22
On the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the Department of Medicine of Kyushu University, Japan exhibited historical material
about the vivisection of eight American pilots. Of those Japanese doctors who participated in the vivisection, five were sentenced to the death penalty, four
to life imprisonment, and fourteen to imprisonment. However, as the Korean War broke out, the US military used excuses to release all the doctors, and not
one was executed.
Given this background, there are two things we should consider: under what circumstances in the Cold War can Americans give up the spirit of
humanism and its value? Can they exempt from trial and release war criminals if the criminals cruelly massacred people of their nationality?
The vivisection cases exhibited at Kyushu University were the first occasion that Japan’s medical community displayed material on medical and ethical
crimes committed during the Second World War on a large scale. It was not an unacceptable starting point. Indeed, it could be a beginning of honestly
perceiving history, memory, and the future.