Page 34 - Unit 731 Testimony

To these guards, the people in here have already lost all rights.
Their names have been exchanged for just a number written across the
front of their shirts and the name maruta. They are referred to only as

"Maruta Number X." They are counted not as one person or two
persons but "one log, two logs." We are not concerned with where they
are from, how they came here.
The man looked like a farmer, covered with grime. He Was
wasting away, and his cheekbones protruded. His eyes glared out from

the dirt and the tattered cotton clothes he was wrapped in.
The team leader was fully pleased with yesterday's results. We
never had such a typical change in blood picture and rate of infection,

and I was eagerly looking forward to see what changes would be
present in today's blood sample. With high hopes, I came to the
Number 7 cell block with the armed guards at my side. The maruta I
was working on was on the verge of death. It would be disastrous if he
died. Then I would not be able to get a blood sample, and we would
not obtain the important results of the tests we had been working on.

I called his number. No answer came. I motioned through the
window at the other four prisoners to bring him over. They sat there
without moving. I screamed abusively at them to hurry up and bring
him over to the window. One of the guards pulled out a gun, aimed it
at them, and screamed in Chinese. Resigned, they gently lifted up the

other man and brought him over to the window. More important to me
than the man's death was the blood flowing in the human guinea pig's
body at the moment just before his death.
His hand was purplish and turning cold. He put his arm through

the opening. I was elated. Filled with a sense of victory and holding
down my inexpressible excitement, thinking forward to how the team
leader would be waiting for these results, I reached for the
hypodermic.

I inserted the needle into the vein. It made a dull sound. I pulled
the red-black blood into the hypodermic. Three cubic centimeters ...
five cubic centimeters ... His face became paler. Before, he'd been
moaning; now he could not even moan. His throat was making a tiny
rasping sound like an insect. With resentment and anger in his eyes, he
stared at me without even blinking. But that did not matter. I obtained