World justice.

San Francisco the summer of 1998, at an exhibit memorializing the victims of Unit 731, those who can never forget came face to face with those who never knew.

There was a larger pattern here of extermination of genocide, of massacre, which, I think many Americans are just only barely starting to learn about.

Conferences, travelling exhibits and books have begun to spread worldwide the story of Unit 731's savagery. This dissemination of the truth is part of a larger movement to force Japan to come to grips with its past-a past that many Japanese continue to deny.

It is understandably that a proud nation is reluctant to acknowledge its past misdeeds, but a great nation must overcome its pride and face the painful truth.

If one reads Japanese textbooks, there is scarcely a mention of anything negative about the Japanese role in the World War Two. Most Japanese are taught that a Japan was not an aggressive nation but instead because of the dropping of the atomic bomb Japan was a victim of World War Two, and that mindsets persist to this very day in very large numbers of Japanese citizens.

The Chinese government, which has never reconciled with Japan, is doing anything it can to keep memories of Unit 731 alive. Today in Harbin, a portion of what is left of the compound has been turned into a museum-a tourist’s site-the ghosts of the past will not be allowed to vanish for memory.

It's not only anger, you know, you have the disgust, I mean offspring of these people, I have their blood. I must do something for them because I know the truth. So as you have learned about a truth you just can't, you know, turn yourself away from it, you must do something for this people, and also because the Japanese government keeps denying about the war atrocities. These people are human beings. They died just like worms.

The truth of Unit 731 goes beyond nationality or patriotism. It strikes to the hearts of the human experience of the 20th century. And as a new century begins, more and more of the truth will be told.

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