During WWII, the Germans set up horrific extermination camps for Jews, Poles and other Slavs; the Russians had their Gulags for almost everybody, then and later; the Japanese tried to exterminate the Chinese. The funny thing is, we never hear much of the third one, even though the U.S. played an active part on the side of the Chinese - well, some Chinese. There were the beginnings of a Communist Revolution all during the War of Japanese Aggression (what the Chinese call World War 2), and the whole thing got messy. Very messy. In the end, the Japanese were defeated, mostly by the KMT 'nationalist' forces of Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jie Shi in Chinese) which was being supplied with arms from the U.S. at the time, as the communists mostly stayed away from major conflict, biding time. (this is a very simplified version of the story, but I don't want to get into the whole complicated history of it) In the end of course, the communists defeated the depleted KMT army - or at least, chased them into exile to a little island called Taiwan.

During the War of Japanese Aggression, many atrocities had taken place, and many of you have probably heard of the Rape of Nanjing (alternate spelling Nanking). But almost no one heard about Unit 731, a brutal biological warfare and "research" unit of the Japanese. Here, top microbiologists performed lethal vivisection, horrific experimentation, and perfected the sowing of lethal diseases into the Chinese countryside. If you start following the links and read on in detail, prepare to be horrified - you might want to save the gore for later. The wikipedia link here gives a rough outline:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

And the much more informative and detailed website here (there are some very graphic details and even a few pictures from the links here, so viewer beware):
http://www.aiipowmia.com/731/731mnu.html

A brief synopsis of that website is at this link:
http://www.aiipowmia.com/731/731holocaust.html

It wasn't just unit 731, of course, there were many other units that were later found as well - Unit 516 (Qiqihar), Unit 543 (Hailar), Unit 773 (Songo unit), Unit 100 (Changchun), Unit 1644 (Nanjing), Unit 1855 (Beijing), Unit 8604 (Guangzhou), Unit 200 (Manchuria) and Unit 9420 (Singapore). There may have been others that we will never know about too, as the retreating Japanese army was very careful to cover their tracks. What often gets only a passing mention from some of these sites, on top of the thousands killed at the actual death units, was the propogation of disease by these madmen into the general populace. After all, the end goal was to find a perfect biological weapon to wipe out the Chinese race. These numbers, when added to the estimated death total from the actual units, could easily rival or surpass the European Holocaust that most know of so well.

And how does the story end? What happened to the bad guys - doctors and military men - after the war? Well, turns out it was a bad, sick joke . . .

Shiro Ishii (lead microbiologist and Lieutenant General of Unit 731) - dealt immunity from war crimes prosecution from the Americans, in exchange for information on germ/biological warfare. Of note, he went on to supervise biological research at the University of Maryland. Never prosecuted, he died of throat cancer at the age of 67.

Dr Masaji Kitano (who later took over as head of operations) founded the Japan Blood Bank, predecessor to the Green Cross, which became Japan's largest pharmaceutical company. (The Osaka-based Green Cross Corp., which merged with a major pharmaceutical firm in April 1998, was held responsible for causing numerous AIDS cases in Japan by selling HIV-tainted blood products in the 1980s)

Almost all of the doctors who had been key instruments of death in Unit 731 lived out their lives peacefully in Japan, obtaining university posts and securing financially rewarding jobs.

Japan has never made an apology for the war, as Germany did. These monsters of humanity were given hero status, high profile positions of power, and revered as scientists and businessmen. A collective amnesia settled over the attempt of mass extermination. Japan covered up all mention of Unit 731, as well as any other biological warfare. It doesn't get mentioned in any history textbooks in Japan.

General Douglas MacArthur, in charge of rebuilding Japan postwar, holds most of the responsibility for the American cover-up, with president Truman reportedly having full knowledge of it. The price for biological warfare knowledge, especially since the cost had already been paid in silence, was cheap.

Will we ever stand by again while atrocities of this magnitude are covered up? Are we idle at this very moment while something of the like is happening in our time?

History may, or may not, show us.