Rape of women by Japanese soldiers during the war. How Japanese prisoners of war shocked the Soviet people. The most painful execution

Most likely, it will be: Japanese cuisine, high technology, anime, Japanese schoolgirls, hard work, politeness, etc. However, some may remember far from the most positive moments. Well, almost all countries have dark periods in their history that they are not proud of, and Japan is no exception to this rule.

The older generation will certainly remember the events of the last century, when Japanese soldiers who invaded the territory of their Asian neighbors showed the whole world how cruel and merciless they could be. Of course, a lot of time has passed since then, however, in the modern world there is an increasing tendency towards deliberate distortion of historical facts. For example, many Americans fervently believe that they were the ones who won all historical battles, and strive to instill these beliefs in the whole world. And what are pseudo-historical opuses like “Rape Germany” worth? And in Japan, for the sake of friendship with the United States, politicians try to hush up inconvenient moments and interpret the events of the past in their own way, sometimes even presenting themselves as innocent victims. It got to the point that some Japanese schoolchildren believe that the USSR dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is a belief that Japan became an innocent victim of US imperialist policy - although the outcome of the war was already clear to everyone, the Americans sought to demonstrate to the whole world what a terrible weapon they had created, and defenseless Japanese cities became only a “great opportunity” for this. However, Japan was never an innocent victim and may have truly deserved such a terrible punishment. Nothing in this world passes without a trace; the blood of hundreds of thousands of people who were subjected to brutal extermination calls for vengeance.

The article brought to your attention describes only a small fraction of what happened once and does not pretend to become the ultimate truth. All the crimes of Japanese soldiers described in this material were recorded by military tribunals, and the literary sources used in its creation are freely available on the Internet.

— A short excerpt from Valentin Pikul’s book “Katorga” well describes the tragic events of Japanese expansion in the Far East:

“The tragedy of the island has been determined. On Gilyak boats, on foot or on pack horses, carrying children, refugees from Southern Sakhalin began to get out through the mountains and impassable swamps to Aleksandrovsk, and at first no one wanted to believe their monstrous stories about samurai atrocities: “They kill everyone. They show no mercy even to small children. And what unchrists! First he will give you some candy, pat him on the head, and then... then your head will hit the wall. We gave up everything we had to earn just to stay alive...” The refugees were telling the truth. When earlier bodies of Russian soldiers mutilated by torture were found in the vicinity of Port Arthur or Mukden, the Japanese said that this was the work of the Honghuz of the Chinese Empress Cixi. But there were never Honghuzes on Sakhalin, now the inhabitants of the island saw the true appearance of the samurai. It was here, on Russian soil, that the Japanese decided to save their cartridges: they pierced military or combatants who were captured with rifle cutlasses, and cut off the heads of local residents with sabers, like executioners. According to an exiled political prisoner, in the first days of the invasion alone they beheaded two thousand peasants.”

This is just a small excerpt from the book - in reality, a complete nightmare was happening on the territory of our country. Japanese soldiers committed atrocities as best they could, and their actions received full approval from the command of the occupying army. The villages of Mazhanovo, Sokhatino and Ivanovka fully learned what the real “way of Bushido” is. Mad occupiers burned houses and people in them; women were brutally raped; they shot and bayoneted residents, and cut off the heads of defenseless people with swords. Hundreds of our compatriots fell victims to the unprecedented cruelty of the Japanese in those terrible years.

— Events in Nanjing.

Cold December 1937 was marked by the fall of Nanjing, the capital of Kuomintang China. What happened after this defies any description. Selflessly destroying the population of this city, the Japanese soldiers actively applied the favorite policy of “three to nothing” - “burn everything clean,” “kill everyone clean,” “rob everything clean.” At the beginning of the occupation, about 20 thousand Chinese men of military age were bayoneted, after which the Japanese turned their attention to the weakest - children, women and the elderly. Japanese soldiers were so mad with lust that they raped all women (regardless of age) in the daytime right on the city streets. When finishing the bestial intercourse, the samurai gouged out the eyes of their victims and cut out the hearts.

Two officers argued who could kill a hundred Chinese faster. The bet was won by a samurai who killed 106 people. His opponent was only one corpse behind.

By the end of the month, approximately 300 thousand residents of Nanjing were brutally killed and tortured to death. Thousands of corpses floated in the city river, and the soldiers leaving Nanjing calmly walked to the transport ship right over the dead bodies.

— Singapore and the Philippines.

Having occupied Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese began to methodically capture and shoot “anti-Japanese elements.” Their blacklist included everyone who had at least some connection to China. In post-war Chinese literature, this operation was called "Suk Ching". Soon it moved to the territory of the Malay Peninsula, where, without further ado, the Japanese army decided not to waste time on inquiries, but simply to take and destroy the local Chinese. Fortunately, they did not have time to implement their plans - in early March the transfer of soldiers to other sectors of the front began. The approximate number of Chinese killed as a result of Operation Suk Ching is estimated at 50 thousand people.

Occupied Manila had a much worse time when the command of the Japanese army came to the conclusion that it could not be held. But the Japanese could not just leave and leave the inhabitants of the Philippine capital alone, and after receiving a plan for the destruction of the city, signed by high-ranking officials from Tokyo, they began to implement it. What the occupiers did in those days defies any description. Residents of Manila were shot with machine guns, burned alive, and bayoneted. The soldiers did not spare churches, schools, hospitals and diplomatic institutions that served as refuges for unfortunate people. Even according to the most conservative estimates, Japanese soldiers lost at least 100 thousand lives in Manila and its environs.

— Comfortable women.

During the military campaign in Asia, the Japanese army regularly resorted to the sexual “services” of captives, the so-called “comfort women”. Hundreds of thousands of women of all ages accompanied the aggressors, subjected to constant violence and abuse. The morally and physically crushed captives could not get out of bed due to terrible pain, and the soldiers continued their fun. When the army command realized that it was inconvenient to constantly carry hostages of lust with them, they ordered the construction of stationary brothels, which were later called “comfort stations.” Such stations have appeared since the early 30s. in all Japanese-occupied Asian countries. Among the soldiers, they were nicknamed "29 to 1" - these numbers denoted the daily proportion of service to military personnel. One woman was obliged to serve 29 men, then the norm was increased to 40, and sometimes even rose to 60. Some captives managed to go through the war and live to an old age, but even now, remembering all the horrors they experienced, they cry bitterly.

- Pearl Harbor.

It is difficult to find a person who has not seen the Hollywood blockbuster of the same name. Many American and British WWII veterans were unhappy that the filmmakers portrayed the Japanese pilots as too noble. According to their stories, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war were many times more terrible, and the Japanese surpassed the most brutal SS men in cruelty. A more truthful version of those events is shown in a documentary called “Hell in the Pacific.” After the successful military operation at Pearl Harbor, which claimed a huge number of lives and caused so much grief, the Japanese openly rejoiced, rejoicing in their victory. Now they won’t tell this from TV screens, but then the American and British military came to the conclusion that Japanese soldiers were not people at all, but vile rats who were subject to complete extermination. They were no longer taken prisoner, but were killed immediately on the spot - there were often cases when a captured Japanese exploded a grenade, hoping to destroy both himself and his enemies. In turn, the samurai did not value the lives of American prisoners at all, considering them despicable material and using them to practice bayonet attack skills. Moreover, there are cases when, after problems with food supplies appeared, Japanese soldiers decided that eating their captured enemies could not be considered something sinful or shameful. The exact number of victims eaten remains unknown, but eyewitnesses of those events say that Japanese gourmets cut off and ate pieces of meat directly from living people. It is also worth mentioning how the Japanese army fought cases of cholera and other diseases among prisoners of war. Burning all prisoners in the camp where the infected were encountered was the most effective means of disinfection, tested many times.

What caused such shocking atrocities by the Japanese? It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally, but one thing is extremely clear - all participants in the events mentioned above are responsible for the crimes committed, and not just the high command, because the soldiers did this not because they were ordered, but because they themselves liked to cause pain and torment. There is an assumption that such incredible cruelty towards the enemy was caused by the interpretation of the military code of Bushido, which stated the following provisions: no mercy to the defeated enemy; captivity is a shame worse than death; defeated enemies should be exterminated so that they cannot take revenge in the future.

By the way, Japanese soldiers have always been distinguished by their unique vision of life - for example, before going to war, some men killed their children and wives with their own hands. This was done if the wife was sick, and there were no other guardians in the event of the loss of a breadwinner. The soldiers did not want to condemn their family to starvation and thereby expressed their devotion to the emperor.

Currently, it is widely believed that Japan is a unique Eastern civilization, the quintessence of all that is best in Asia. Judging from the standpoint of culture and technology, perhaps this is so. However, even the most developed and civilized nations have their dark sides. In conditions of occupation of foreign territory, impunity and fanatical confidence in the righteousness of his actions, a person can reveal his secret, hidden for the time being, essence. How spiritually have those whose ancestors selflessly stained their hands with the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people changed, and will they repeat their actions in the future?

Japanese atrocities - 21+

I present to your attention photos taken by Japanese soldiers during World War II. Only thanks to quick and tough measures, the Red Army was able to very painfully tear out the Japanese army on Lake Khasan and the Khalkhin Gol River, where the Japanese decided to test our strength

Only thanks to a serious defeat, they pinned their ears and postponed the invasion of the USSR until the Germans captured Moscow. Only the failure of Operation Typhoon did not allow our dear Japanese friends to organize a second front for the USSR.

Trophies of the Red Army

Everyone has somehow forgotten about the atrocities of the Germans and their lackeys on our territory. Unfortunately.

Typical example:

Using Japanese photos as an example, I want to show what a joy it was to see the Imperial Japanese Army. It was a powerful and well-equipped force. And its composition was perfectly prepared, drilled, fanatically devoted to the idea of ​​domination of their country over all other monkeys. They were yellow-skinned Aryans, as other long-nosed, round-eyed top men from the Third Reich reluctantly admitted. Together they were destined to divide the world into smaller ones for their own benefit.

The photo shows a Japanese officer and soldier. I especially draw your attention to the fact that all officers in the army had swords without fail. The old samurai families have katanas, the new ones, without traditions, have an army sword of the 1935 model. Without a sword, you are not an officer.

In general, the cult of edged weapons among the Japanese was at its best. Just as officers were proud of their swords, so soldiers were proud of their long bayonets and used them wherever possible.

In the photo - practicing bayonet fighting on prisoners:

It was a good tradition, so it was applied everywhere.

(well, by the way, this also happened in Europe - the brave Poles practiced saber cutting and bayonet techniques on captured Red Army soldiers in exactly the same way)

However, shooting was also practiced on prisoners. Training on captured Sikhs from the British Armed Forces:

Of course, the officers also flaunted their ability to use a sword. especially honing the ability to remove human heads with one blow. Supreme chic.

In the photo - training in Chinese:

Of course, the Untermenschi had to know their place. In the photo, the Chinese greet their new masters as expected:

If they show disrespect, in Japan a samurai could blow off the head of any commoner who, as it seemed to the samurai, greeted him disrespectfully. In China it was even worse.

However, low-ranking soldiers also did not lag behind the samurai. In the photo, soldiers admire the agony of a Chinese peasant who was gored by their bayonets:

Of course, they chopped off heads both for training and just for fun:

And for selfies:

Because it is beautiful and courageous:

The Japanese army especially developed after the storming of the Chinese capital - the city of Nanjing. Here the soul unfolded like a button accordion. well, in the Japanese sense it’s probably better to say like a fan of sakura flowers. In the three months after the assault, the Japanese massacred, shot, burned, and various other things, more than 300,000 people. Well, not a person, in their opinion, but a Chinese one.

Indiscriminately - women, children or men.

Well, it’s true, it was customary to cut out the men first, just in case, so as not to interfere.

And women - after. With violence and entertainment.

And children, of course

The officers even started a competition to see who could cut off the most heads in a day. Just like Gimli and Legolas - who kills the most orcs. Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun, later renamed Mainichi Shimbun. On December 13, 1937, a photo of Lieutenants Mukai and Noda appeared on the front page of the newspaper under the headline "The competition to be the first to cut off the heads of 100 Chinese with a saber is over: Mukai has already scored 106 points, and Noda has 105." One point in the “bounty race” meant one victim. But we can say that these Chinese are lucky.

As mentioned in the diary of an eyewitness to those events, the leader of the local Nazi party, John Rabe, “the Japanese military chased the Chinese throughout the city and stabbed them with bayonets or sabers.” However, according to Hajime Kondo, a veteran of the Japanese Imperial Army who participated in the events in Nanjing, the majority of the Japanese “believed that it was too noble for a Chinese to die from a saber, and therefore more often stoned them to death.”

Japanese soldiers began to practice their popular “three to three” policy: “burn the clear,” “kill the clear,” “rob the clear.”

Another selfie. The warriors tried to document their bravery. Well, due to prohibitions, I can’t post photos of more sophisticated amusements, such as stuffing cola into a raped Chinese woman. Because it's softer. The Japanese man shows what kind of girlfriend he has.

More selfies

One of the brave athletes with booty^

And these are just the results of some outsider^

Then the Chinese could not bury all the corpses for a long time.

It took a long time. There are a lot of dead, but there is no one to bury them. Everyone has heard about Tamerlane with the pyramids of skulls. Well, the Japanese are not far behind.

Whites got it too. The Japanese did not bother with prisoners.

These were lucky - they survived:

But this Australian doesn't:

So if the brave Japanese crossed our border, one could imagine that they would be worthy comrades of the Germans. The photo shows the result of the work of the German Einsatzkommando.

Because - just look at the photo

Like torture with bamboo, the “iron maiden” is considered by many researchers to be a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the people under investigation, after which they confessed to anything. The "Iron Maiden" was invented at the end of the 18th century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.
How it works?
1) The victim is stuffed into the sarcophagus and the door is closed;
2) The spikes driven into the inner walls of the “iron maiden” are quite short and do not pierce the victim, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, receives a confession in a matter of minutes, which the arrested person only has to sign;
3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to remain silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;
4) The victim never admits to what she had done, so she was locked in a sarcophagus for a long time, where she died from loss of blood;
5) Some models of the “iron maiden” were provided with spikes at eye level in order to quickly poke them out.
3. Skafism
The name of this torture comes from the Greek “scaphium”, which means “trough”. Scaphism was popular in ancient Persia. During the torture, the victim, most often a prisoner of war, was devoured alive by various insects and their larvae who were partial to human flesh and blood.
How it works?
1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.
2) He is force-fed large quantities of milk and honey, which causes the victim to have profuse diarrhea, which attracts insects.
3) The prisoner, having shit himself and smeared with honey, is allowed to float in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.
4) The insects immediately begin their meal, with the living flesh of the martyr as the main dish.
4. The Terrible Pear


“The pear is lying there - you can’t eat it,” it is said about the medieval European weapon for “educating” blasphemers, liars, women who gave birth out of wedlock, and gay men. Depending on the crime, the torturer thrust the pear into the sinner's mouth, anus or vagina.
How it works?
1) A tool consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments is inserted into the client’s desired body hole;
2) The executioner little by little turns the screw on the top of the pear, while the “leaves” segments bloom inside the martyr, causing hellish pain;
3) After the pear is completely opened, the offender receives internal injuries incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness.
5. Copper Bull


The design of this death unit was developed by the ancient Greeks, or, to be more precise, by the coppersmith Perillus, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, who simply loved to torture and kill people in unusual ways.
A living person was pushed inside the copper statue through a special door.
So
Phalaris first tested the unit on its creator, the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Phalaris himself was roasted in a bull.
How it works?
1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;
2) A fire is lit under the bull’s belly;
3) The victim is fried alive, like a ham in a frying pan;
4) The structure of the bull is such that the cries of the martyr come from the mouth of the statue, like a bull’s roar;
5) Jewelry and amulets were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold at bazaars and were in great demand..
6. Torture by rats


Torture by rats was very popular in ancient China. However, we will look at the rat punishment technique developed by 16th century Dutch Revolution leader Diedrick Sonoy.
How it works?
1) The stripped naked martyr is placed on a table and tied;
2) Large, heavy cages with hungry rats are placed on the prisoner’s stomach and chest. The bottom of the cells is opened using a special valve;
3) Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;
4) Trying to escape the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.
7. Cradle of Judas

The Judas Cradle was one of the most torturous torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema - the Spanish Inquisition. Victims usually died from infection, as a result of the fact that the pointed seat of the torture machine was never disinfected. The Cradle of Judas, as an instrument of torture, was considered “loyal” because it did not break bones or tear ligaments.
How it works?
1) The victim, whose hands and feet are tied, is seated on the top of a pointed pyramid;
2) The top of the pyramid is thrust into the anus or vagina;
3) Using ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;
4) The torture continues for several hours or even days until the victim dies from powerlessness and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.
8. Trampling by elephants

For several centuries, this execution was practiced in India and Indochina. An elephant is very easy to train and teaching it to trample a guilty victim with its huge feet is a matter of just a few days.
How it works?
1. The victim is tied to the floor;
2. A trained elephant is brought into the hall to crush the martyr’s head;
3. Sometimes before the “head test,” animals crush the victims’ arms and legs in order to amuse the audience.
9. Rack

Probably the most famous and unrivaled death machine of its kind called the “rack”. It was first tested around 300 AD. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.
Anyone who survived the rack could no longer use their muscles and became a helpless vegetable.
How it works?
1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, around which ropes are wound to hold the victim’s wrists and ankles. As the rollers rotated, the ropes pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body;
2. Ligaments in the victim’s arms and legs are stretched and torn, bones pop out of their joints.
3. Another version of the rack was also used, called strappado: it consisted of 2 pillars dug into the ground and connected by a crossbar. The interrogated person's hands were tied behind his back and lifted by a rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the arms of the person raised on the rack were turned back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on his outstretched arms. They were on the rack from several minutes to an hour or more. This type of rack was used most often in Western Europe
4. In Russia, a suspect raised on the rack was beaten on the back with a whip and “put to the fire,” that is, burning brooms were passed over the body.
5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with red-hot pincers.
10. Paraffin in the bladder
A savage form of torture, the exact use of which has not been established.
How it works?
1. Candle paraffin was rolled by hand into a thin sausage, which was inserted through the urethra;
2. Paraffin slipped into the bladder, where solid salts and other nasty things began to settle on it.
3. Soon the victim began to have kidney problems and died from acute renal failure. On average, death occurred within 3-4 days.
11. Shiri (camel cap)
A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Ruanzhuans (a union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into slavery. They destroyed the slave's memory with a terrible torture - putting a shiri on the victim's head. Usually this fate befell young men captured in battle.
How it works?
1. First, the slaves' heads were shaved bald, and every hair was carefully scraped out at the root.
2. The executors slaughtered the camel and skinned its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, dense nuchal part.
3. Having divided the neck into pieces, they immediately pulled it in pairs over the shaved heads of the prisoners. These pieces stuck to the heads of the slaves like a plaster. This meant putting on the shiri.
4. After putting on the shiri, the neck of the doomed person was chained in a special wooden block so that the subject could not touch his head to the ground. In this form, they were taken away from crowded places so that no one would hear their heartbreaking screams, and they were thrown there in an open field, with their hands and feet tied, in the sun, without water and without food.
5. The torture lasted 5 days.
6. Only a few remained alive, and the rest died not from hunger or even from thirst, but from unbearable, inhuman torment caused by drying, shrinking rawhide camel skin on the head. Inexorably shrinking under the rays of the scorching sun, the width squeezed and squeezed the slave's shaved head like an iron hoop. Already on the second day, the shaved hair of the martyrs began to sprout. Coarse and straight Asian hair sometimes grew into the rawhide; in most cases, finding no way out, the hair curled and went back into the scalp, causing even greater suffering. Within a day the man lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Ruanzhuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured people was found alive, it was considered that the goal had been achieved. .
7. Anyone who underwent such a procedure either died, unable to withstand the torture, or lost his memory for life, turned into a mankurt - a slave who does not remember his past.
8. The skin of one camel was enough for five or six widths.
12. Implantation of metals
A very strange means of torture and execution was used in the Middle Ages.
How it works?
1. A deep incision was made on a person’s legs, where a piece of metal (iron, lead, etc.) was placed, after which the wound was stitched up.
2. Over time, the metal oxidized, poisoning the body and causing terrible pain.
3. Most often, the poor people tore the skin in the place where the metal was sewn up and died from blood loss.
13. Dividing a person into two parts
This terrible execution originated in Thailand. The most hardened criminals were subjected to it - mostly murderers.
How it works?
1. The accused is placed in a robe woven from vines and stabbed with sharp objects;
2. After this, his body is quickly cut into two parts, the upper half is immediately placed on a red-hot copper grate; this operation stops the bleeding and prolongs the life of the upper part of the person.
A small addition: This torture is described in the book of the Marquis de Sade “Justine, or the successes of vice.” This is a small excerpt from a large piece of text where de Sade allegedly describes the torture of the peoples of the world. But why supposedly? According to many critics, the Marquis was very fond of lying. He had an extraordinary imagination and a couple of delusions, so this torture, like some others, could have been a figment of his imagination. But this field should not refer to Donatien Alphonse as Baron Munchausen. This torture, in my opinion, if it did not exist before, is quite realistic. If, of course, the person is pumped up with painkillers (opiates, alcohol, etc.) before this, so that he does not die before his body touches the bars.
14. Inflating with air through the anus
A terrible torture in which a person is pumped with air through the anus.
There is evidence that in Rus' even Peter the Great himself sinned with this.
Most often, thieves were executed this way.
How it works?
1. The victim was tied hand and foot.
2. Then they took cotton and stuffed it into the poor man’s ears, nose and mouth.
3. Bellows were inserted into his anus, with the help of which a huge amount of air was pumped into the person, as a result of which he became like a balloon.
3. After that, I plugged his anus with a piece of cotton.
4. Then they opened two veins above his eyebrows, from which all the blood flowed out under enormous pressure.
5. Sometimes a bound person was placed naked on the roof of the palace and shot with arrows until he died.
6. Until 1970, this method was often used in Jordanian prisons.
15. Polledro
Neapolitan executioners lovingly called this torture “polledro” - “foal” (polledro) and were proud that it was first used in their hometown. Although history has not preserved the name of its inventor, they said that he was an expert in horse breeding and came up with an unusual device to tame his horses.
Only a few decades later, lovers of making fun of people turned the horse breeder’s device into a real torture machine for people.
The machine was a wooden frame, similar to a ladder, the crossbars of which had very sharp angles, so that when a person was placed on them with his back, they cut into the body from the back of the head to the heels. The staircase ended with a huge wooden spoon, into which the head was placed, as if in a cap.
How it works?
1. Holes were drilled on both sides of the frame and in the “cap”, and ropes were threaded into each of them. The first of them was tightened on the forehead of the tortured, the last tied the big toes. As a rule, there were thirteen ropes, but for those who were especially stubborn, the number was increased.
2. Using special devices, the ropes were pulled tighter and tighter - it seemed to the victims that, having crushed the muscles, they were digging into the bones.
16. Dead Man's Bed (modern China)


The Chinese Communist Party uses the “dead man’s bed” torture mainly on those prisoners who try to protest against illegal imprisonment through a hunger strike. In most cases, these are prisoners of conscience, imprisoned for their beliefs.
How it works?
1. The arms and legs of a stripped prisoner are tied to the corners of a bed on which, instead of a mattress, there is a wooden board with a hole cut out. A bucket for excrement is placed under the hole. Often, a person’s body is tied tightly to the bed with ropes so that he cannot move at all. A person remains in this position continuously for several days to weeks.
2. In some prisons, such as Shenyang City No. 2 Prison and Jilin City Prison, police also place a hard object under the victim's back to intensify the suffering.
3. It also happens that the bed is placed vertically and the person hangs for 3-4 days, stretched out by his limbs.
4. Added to this torment is force feeding, which is carried out using a tube inserted through the nose into the esophagus, into which liquid food is poured.
5. This procedure is performed mainly by prisoners on the orders of the guards, and not by medical workers. They do this very rudely and unprofessionally, often causing serious damage to a person’s internal organs.
6. Those who have gone through this torture say that it causes displacement of the vertebrae, joints of the arms and legs, as well as numbness and blackening of the limbs, which often leads to disability.
17. Yoke (Modern China)

One of the medieval tortures used in modern Chinese prisons is the wearing of a wooden collar. It is placed on a prisoner, causing him to be unable to walk or stand normally.
The clamp is a board from 50 to 80 cm in length, from 30 to 50 cm in width and 10 – 15 cm in thickness. In the middle of the clamp there are two holes for the legs.
The victim, who is wearing a collar, has difficulty moving, must crawl into bed and usually must sit or lie down, as the upright position causes pain and leads to injury to the legs. Without assistance, a person with a collar cannot go to eat or go to the toilet. When a person gets out of bed, the collar not only puts pressure on the legs and heels, causing pain, but its edge clings to the bed and prevents the person from returning to it. At night the prisoner is unable to turn around, and in winter the short blanket does not cover his legs.
An even worse form of this torture is called “crawling with a wooden clamp.” The guards put a collar on the man and order him to crawl on the concrete floor. If he stops, he is hit on the back with a police baton. An hour later, his fingers, toenails and knees are bleeding profusely, while his back is covered in wounds from the blows.
18. Impalement

A terrible, savage execution that came from the East.
The essence of this execution was that a person was laid on his stomach, one sat on him to prevent him from moving, the other held him by the neck. A stake was inserted into the person's anus, which was then driven in with a mallet; then they drove a stake into the ground. The weight of the body forced the stake to go deeper and deeper and finally it came out under the armpit or between the ribs.
19. Spanish water torture

In order to best carry out the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the types of racks or on a special large table with a rising middle part. After the victim's arms and legs were tied to the edges of the table, the executioner began work in one of several ways. One of these methods involved forcing the victim to swallow a large amount of water using a funnel, then hitting the distended and arched abdomen. Another form involved placing a cloth tube down the victim's throat through which water was slowly poured, causing the victim to swell and suffocate. If this was not enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then inserted again and the process repeated. Sometimes cold water torture was used. In this case, the accused lay naked on a table under a stream of ice water for hours. It is interesting to note that this type of torture was considered light, and the court accepted confessions obtained in this way as voluntary and given by the defendant without the use of torture. Most often, these tortures were used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to extract confessions from heretics and witches.
20. Chinese water torture
They sat a man in a very cold room, tied him so that he could not move his head, and in complete darkness cold water was very slowly dripped onto his forehead. After a few days the person froze or went crazy.
21. Spanish armchair

This instrument of torture was widely used by the executioners of the Spanish Inquisition and was a chair made of iron, on which the prisoner was seated, and his legs were placed in stocks attached to the legs of the chair. When he found himself in such a completely helpless position, a brazier was placed under his feet; with hot coals, so that the legs began to slowly fry, and in order to prolong the suffering of the poor fellow, the legs were poured with oil from time to time.
Another version of the Spanish chair was often used, which was a metal throne to which the victim was tied and a fire was lit under the seat, roasting the buttocks. The famous poisoner La Voisin was tortured on such a chair during the famous Poisoning Case in France.
22. GRIDIRON (Grid for torture by fire)


Torture of Saint Lawrence on the gridiron.
This type of torture is often mentioned in the lives of saints - real and fictitious, but there is no evidence that the gridiron “survived” until the Middle Ages and had even a small circulation in Europe. It is usually described as an ordinary metal grate, 6 feet long and two and a half feet wide, mounted horizontally on legs to allow a fire to be built underneath.
Sometimes the gridiron was made in the form of a rack in order to be able to resort to combined torture.
Saint Lawrence was martyred on a similar grid.
This torture was used very rarely. Firstly, it was quite easy to kill the person being interrogated, and secondly, there were a lot of simpler, but no less cruel tortures.
23. Pectoral

In ancient times, a pectoral was a female breast decoration in the form of a pair of carved gold or silver bowls, often sprinkled with precious stones. It was worn like a modern bra and secured with chains.
In a mocking analogy with this decoration, the savage instrument of torture used by the Venetian Inquisition was named.
In 1885, the pectoral was heated red-hot and, taking it with tongs, they put it on the tortured woman’s chest and held it until she confessed. If the accused persisted, the executioners heated up the pectoral again cooled by the living body and continued the interrogation.
Very often, after this barbaric torture, charred, torn holes were left in place of the woman’s breasts.
24. Tickle torture

This seemingly harmless effect was a terrible torture. With prolonged tickling, a person's nerve conduction increased so much that even the lightest touch initially caused twitching, laughter, and then turned into terrible pain. If such torture was continued for quite a long time, then after a while spasms of the respiratory muscles occurred and, in the end, the tortured person died from suffocation.
In the simplest version of torture, the interrogated person was tickled in sensitive areas either simply with their hands, or with hair brushes or brushes. Stiff bird feathers were popular. Usually they tickled under the armpits, heels, nipples, inguinal folds, genitals, and women also under the breasts.
In addition, torture was often carried out using animals that licked some tasty substance from the heels of the interrogated person. The goat was very often used, since its very hard tongue, adapted for eating grass, caused very strong irritation.
There was also a type of tickling torture using a beetle, most common in India. With it, a small bug was placed on the head of a man's penis or on a woman's nipple and covered with half a nut shell. After some time, the tickling caused by the movement of insect legs on a living body became so unbearable that the interrogated person confessed to anything
25. Crocodile


These tubular metal crocodile pliers were red-hot and used to tear the penis of the person being tortured. First, with a few caressing movements (often made by women), or with a tight bandage, a persistent, hard erection was achieved and then the torture began
26. Tooth crusher


These serrated iron tongs were used to slowly crush the testicles of the interrogated person.
Something similar was widely used in Stalinist and fascist prisons.
27. Creepy tradition.


Actually, this is not torture, but an African ritual, but, in my opinion, it is very cruel. Girls aged 3-6 years old simply had their external genitalia scraped out without anesthesia.
Thus, the girl did not lose the ability to have children, but was forever deprived of the opportunity to experience sexual desire and pleasure. This ritual is done “for the benefit” of women, so that they will never be tempted to cheat on their husbands
28. Bloody Eagle


One of the most ancient tortures, during which the victim was tied face down and his back was opened, his ribs were broken off at the spine and spread apart like wings. Scandinavian legends claim that during such an execution, the wounds of the victim were sprinkled with salt.
Many historians claim that this torture was used by pagans against Christians, others are sure that spouses caught in treason were punished in this way, and still others claim that the bloody eagle is just a terrible legend.

Comfortable women
During the war in Asia, Japanese militarists actively used “women for pleasure” - hundreds of thousands of Asian women were held by force and deceit in army units, they were forced to accompany the Japanese army. Japanese soldiers raped these women, committing inhumane crimes against them. Philippika Narisa Claveria, in an interview with British television, recalled how she, 11 years old, and her family were captured by the Japanese. The father was tied to a tree and his skin was slowly torn off with bayonets, while the soldiers raped his wife - to enhance the “effect”.

In 1932, Lieutenant General Okamura Yasuji received 223 reports of the rape of local women by Japanese soldiers in occupied China. In this regard, the lieutenant general turned to the command with a proposal to create “comfort stations”, justifying this by the fact that “the stations are created to reduce anti-Japanese sentiments that arose in the occupied territories, as well as for the sake of the need to prevent a decrease in the combat effectiveness of soldiers due to the appearance they have sexually transmitted and other diseases.”

Such comfortable stations have existed since the early 30s. in Manchuria, China, later in Burma, Borneo, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Okinawa. The first station was founded in Shanghai in 1932. According to various estimates, from 50 to 300 thousand young women passed through the “comfort stations,” many of whom were under 18 years of age. A quarter of them survived until the end of the war. Women underwent weekly medical examinations for sexually transmitted diseases. There were cases when military doctors themselves raped healthy people. In case of infection, they were injected with drug “number 606” - terramycin - a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Pregnant women were also given this drug to induce miscarriage. The drug has an undesirable side effect, which subsequently excluded the possibility of having healthy children or giving birth at all.

The number of “comfort stations” grew, covering the entire territory of the Japanese Empire. On September 3, 1942, a message at a meeting of the leaders of the Ministry of the Army indicated that there were 100 “comfort stations” in Northern China, 140 in Central China, 40 in Southern China, 100 in Southeast Asia, 10 in the South Seas, and Sakhalin - 10.

Subsequently, comfortable stations began to be called “niguichi”, i.e. “29 to 1”. This was the daily proportion of “comfortable women” serving soldiers in brothels in conquered territories. Then, understandably, hunger intensified administratively; the loving Japanese set a new standard of 40 men per day for “comfortable women.”

Japanese historians tend to emphasize the purely private and voluntary nature of prostitution. On March 2, 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated that the organized nature of the mass involvement of women in prostitution has not been proven.

Bacteriological warfare and Unit 731.
In 1935, the so-called “Detachment 731” of the Kwantung Army was founded - the largest special unit for the development of bacteriological weapons created by the Japanese in China. For 12 years, the detachment developed bacteriological weapons using bacteria from plague, typhus, dysentery, cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, etc. and tested them on living people.

More than 5 thousand prisoners of war and civilians became “experimental subjects”. Well, the definition of “experimental subjects” is purely ours, European. The Japanese preferred to use the term "logs". The detachment had special cells where people were locked. The cages were so small that the prisoners could not move. They were infected with some kind of infection, and then they were observed for days to see changes in the state of the body. There were also larger cells. The sick and healthy were driven there at the same time in order to track how quickly the disease was transmitted from person to person. But no matter how he was infected, no matter how much he was observed, the end was the same - the person was dissected alive, taking out his organs and watching how the disease spread inside. People were kept alive and not stitched up for days, so that doctors could observe the process without bothering themselves with a new autopsy.

There were also experiments just for curiosity. Individual organs were cut out from the living body of the experimental subjects; they cut off the arms and legs and sewed them back, swapping the right and left limbs; they poured the blood of horses or monkeys into the human body; exposed to powerful X-ray radiation; left without food or water; scalded various parts of the body with boiling water; tested for sensitivity to electric current. Curious scientists filled a person's lungs with large amounts of smoke or gas, and introduced rotting pieces of tissue into the stomach of a living person.

One example of such “training” is described in the book “The Devil’s Kitchen,” written by the most famous researcher of Unit 731, Seiichi Morimura:
“In 1943, a Chinese boy was brought to the section room. According to the employees, he was not one of the “logs,” he was simply kidnapped somewhere and brought to the detachment, but nothing was known for sure. The boy undressed as he was ordered and lay down on the table with his back. A mask containing chloroform was immediately placed on his face. When the anesthesia finally took effect, the boy’s entire body was wiped with alcohol. One of the experienced members of Tanabe's group standing around the table took a scalpel and approached the boy. He plunged a scalpel into the chest and made a Y-shaped incision. The white fat layer was exposed. In the place where Kocher clamps were immediately applied, blood bubbles boiled. The live dissection began. From the boy’s body, the staff, with deft, trained hands, removed the internal organs one after another: stomach, liver, kidneys, pancreas, intestines. They were dismantled and thrown into buckets that stood there, and from the buckets they were immediately transferred into glass vessels filled with formaldehyde, which were closed with lids. The removed organs in formaldehyde solution continued to contract. After the internal organs were removed, only the boy's head remained intact. Small, short-cropped head. One of Minato's team secured her to the operating table. Then, with a scalpel, he made an incision from the ear to the nose. When the skin was removed from the head, a saw was used. A triangular hole was made in the skull, exposing the brain. The detachment officer took it with his hand and quickly lowered it into a vessel with formaldehyde. What was left on the operating table was something that resembled a boy’s body—a devastated body and limbs.”

There were other “detachments”. For example, in 1939, the “Togo 1644 detachment” subordinate to S. Ishii was formed in Nanjing, in October 1939 - the “Beiping Jia Di 1855” detachment, etc.

Attack on Pearl Harbor
Many World War II veterans from the United States and Great Britain are indignant at how noble the Japanese warriors were portrayed by the creators of the film “Pearl Harbor.” They were especially outraged by the scene in which a Japanese pilot warns American children playing baseball to take shelter before the attack. In reality, as participants in the war in the Pacific claim, the Japanese were head and shoulders above the SS in terms of cruelty. In response, British television released the documentary “Hell in the Pacific”; there is more truth there and it is not as artistic, but it is still worth watching.

By the way, during hostilities in the Pacific Fleet, the Americans called the orderly not with the standard cry “orderly,” but with the mysterious cry “talullah” (on behalf of the actress Tallulah Bankhead, quite popular in those years). This is explained by the fact that the Japanese adopted a sneaky tactic - call a paramedic and then shoot him. Well, they were simply unable to pronounce a word with two “l” sounds.

Bataan Death March
According to the plan approved by the Japanese General Homma for the evacuation of prisoners from Bataan, on the first day they were to be driven to a distance of 35 km and not given any food, since they still had to have their own. The next day it was planned to deliver them by truck to the railway station, and on the third day by freight train to the concentration camps. The plan provided that there would be about 25 thousand prisoners. The Japanese could not even imagine that the army that surrendered to them was so superior to their own. When it turned out that there were three times more prisoners than the winners, they were simply driven along the road under the scorching sun to the north, divided into columns of 300-500 people. No distinction was made between the healthy, the sick and the wounded. Everyone who could go was expelled from field hospitals. The rest were bayoneted.

The 35-kilometer journey of the “first day” lasted for three days. With each passing hour, the guards became more and more irritated and looked for any excuse to attack the prisoners. Food was given only on the third day - a handful of rice, and then only on the condition that the prisoners gave the guards all the valuables that they were able to hide.
During the Bataan Death March, guards cut off the heads of prisoners for trying to drink water from their stream, and ripped open their bellies in order to practice the art of wielding a saber.

The “Death March,” as it was later called, lasted 10 days. According to the most conservative estimates, during these days more than 8 thousand prisoners of war were killed, died from wounds, illnesses and exhaustion. When a Japanese liaison officer drove along the road through Bataan a year later, he found both sides literally littered with the skeletons of people who had never been buried. The officer was so shocked that he reported this to General Homme, who expressed surprise that he was not informed about this, well, of course, he lied, the bastard.

In response to all these atrocities, the Americans and British came to the conclusion that the Japanese soldier was not a man at all, but a rat to be destroyed. The Japanese were killed even when they surrendered with their hands up, because they were afraid that they were holding a grenade somewhere in order to blow up the enemy with it. The samurai believed that captured Americans were waste human material. They were usually used for training bayonet attacks. When the Japanese experienced food shortages in New Guinea, they decided that eating their worst enemy could not be considered cannibalism. It is now difficult to calculate how many Americans and Australians were eaten by the insatiable Japanese cannibals. One veteran from India recalls how the Japanese carefully cut off pieces of meat from people who were still alive.

Australian nurses were considered a particularly tasty catch by the conquerors. Therefore, the male staff working with them was ordered to kill nurses in desperate situations so that they would not fall alive into the hands of the Japanese. There was a case when 22 Australian nurses were thrown from a wrecked ship onto the shore of an island captured by the Japanese. The Japanese attacked them like flies to honey. After raping them, they were bayoneted, and at the end of the orgy, they were driven into the sea and shot. Asian prisoners suffered an even sadder fate, since they were valued even less than the Americans.

When there was an outbreak of cholera in one of the concentration camps, the Japanese did not bother with treatment, but simply burned the entire camp along with the women and children. When outbreaks of disease arose in a particular village, fire became the most effective means of disinfection.

Causes
Still, it is worth recognizing that more than one general and more than one colonel were guilty of abusing prisoners and civilians - this was a common practice.
War crimes researcher Bertrand Russell explains Japanese mass crimes, in particular, by a certain interpretation of the bushido code - that is, the Japanese code of conduct for warriors. No mercy to the defeated enemy! Captivity is a shame worse than death. Defeated enemies should be destroyed so that they do not take revenge, etc.

An original civilization?
Concluding the article, I would like to note this. They often say that Japan is a kind of unique civilization, that they are people from another planet, and so on. Well, we can agree. Japan was in self-isolation for quite a long time, so we, brought up in the spirit of Eurocentrism, cannot understand them. This also explains the fact that so far their land is, in general, scarce in terms of talent. Judge for yourself, they adopted their entire original state system from the Chinese, and also copied their writing from the Chinese. As we have already found out, during the Meiji period, social structures were adopted from European ones, as well as the army and navy. Science - almost all was done by Europeans. They know how to copy and adopt well. However, we have already learned to create new things. But only recently. Is this progress and “humanization” or will their originality play a cruel joke on them?

By the way, as everyone knows, after the Second World War, Japan was prohibited from having its own armed forces (that same 9th article of the constitution). And all this time, only small self-defense forces existed in Japan. However, now this is just a formality, because the size of the army has already reached 250 thousand, and the military budget has grown to 44 billion dollars - one of the largest in the world, by the way. Moreover, in 2006, the Ministry of Defense was established and the self-defense forces were officially transformed into the armed forces. Something to think about, yes.

We know very little about the Soviet-Japanese war during World War II. There is almost nothing about Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, factories built by captured Japanese are still operating, houses built by them still stand, thousands of Soviet Japanese children are still alive. Occasionally, in the vastness of the former Soviet Union, modest monuments to deceased Japanese prisoners are found in completely unexpected places. Over the years, there is no more information about this. Therefore, in order to preserve the memory of the fate of a long-gone generation, we will try to briefly restore the forgotten pages of history.

History of Captivity

On July 26, 1945, as part of the Potsdam Conference, a joint declaration was published on behalf of the governments of Great Britain, the United States and China, demanding and terms for the surrender of Japan. On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially joined the declaration. Its ninth point read: “The Japanese armed forces, after they have been disarmed, will be allowed to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead a peaceful and working life...”. Fulfilling its obligations to its allies, the USSR launched the Red Army's offensive in Manchuria on August 8, 1945, an hour after the official declaration of war on Japan. And already on August 15, 1945, an imperial rescript was announced on the surrender of Japan on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

At the time of the surrender, the bulk of Japan's 7 million armed forces were located outside the metropolis. Therefore, most of the army was disarmed by the Americans and Kuomintang China and by 1946 sent to Japan. Approximately 600 military personnel were convicted of crimes (in accordance with paragraph 10 of the Potsdam Declaration) committed against prisoners or civilians in the occupied territories. About 200 of those convicted were executed in various countries.

On August 16, 1945, Japanese troops in Manchuria, North Korea, South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands began surrendering to the Red Army. But the fighting on individual islands lasted until September 5, sometimes due to the Japanese not knowing about the surrender, and sometimes due to the stubbornness of individual commanders. In total, more than 600 thousand military personnel of the Japanese army were captured by the Soviets. Captured units of the Kwantung Army were sent to collection and reception centers, filtration points and front-line prisoner of war camps created by the Soviet military authorities. The sick and wounded were placed in front-line hospitals. In these institutions, prisoners of war were interrogated, relevant documents were filed on them, and those who were suspected of committing military crimes, including against the Chinese and Mongols, were filtered and eliminated here.

The command of the Red Army and the leadership of the NKVD expected the arrival of Japanese prisoners of war as a result of the offensive, but they did not count on such a number, and even one that appeared in a very short period of time. As a result, army commanders were forced to allocate army units to set up additional reception camps, create their administrations, and ensure the security and life of prisoners of war. Naturally, building materials, fuel, food, medications and other means were not prepared in advance for their arrangement. Therefore, adapted rooms and tents were used for the camps. They were often located in the open air. Sanitary and temperature conditions were not observed. Some prisoners of war caught colds, and as a result, infectious diseases became more frequent. Typhus was rampant. Some field hospitals, medical battalions and companies were withdrawn from Soviet military units and sent for the needs of prisoners of war. In the camps, prisoners were distributed among units, and Japanese officers and non-commissioned officers maintained discipline and compliance with camp orders. Morning and evening checks for the presence of people were carried out daily. A record of the sick and dead was kept.

Let us note that the Japanese themselves did not consider themselves prisoners of war, but considered themselves to have laid down their arms in accordance with the terms of surrender and were awaiting transport to Japan. Moreover, they believed that the Soviet camps provided them with protection from the Chinese, who suffered a lot from the Japanese during the occupation, and whenever possible they did not miss the opportunity to take revenge.

However, contrary to the Potsdam Declaration, the State Defense Committee adopted Resolution No. 9898-ss on the transfer of “about 500 thousand Japanese prisoners of war” to the territory of the USSR. It was prescribed “before the removal of Japanese prisoners of war to the territory of the USSR, to organize working battalions of 1000 prisoners of war each. The duties of battalion and company commanders shall be entrusted to the lower officers of the Japanese army." The reasons for this decision are still unknown, although political, economic, as well as Stalin’s personal ambitious motives can be found in them. In any case, Soviet ideologists and their today's followers have still not been able to find an intelligible explanation.

The sending of prisoners to the USSR was carried out from front-line camps, where battalion-by-battalion stages of prisoners of war were formed.

Thus, out of 639,635 prisoners, 62,245 people were released on the battlefield, 15,986 people died from wounds, hunger and cold in front-line hospitals, 12,318 people were transferred to the Mongolian government. The remaining 549,086 people were taken to the territory of the USSR in the fall of 1945. Another 6,345 people died en route from various causes. Among the prisoners were 163 generals and 26,573 officers.

And although the USSR did not sign the Geneva Convention, it considered the deported Japanese prisoners of war and selectively applied its provisions to them. The Japanese considered themselves to be illegally interned. The Japanese government held the same position then and today. Since then, this issue has remained controversial and unresolved.

Prisoner of war camps

Japanese prisoners of war were placed in special camps of the Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI) of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was formed back in 1939. About 70 thousand prisoners were sent to separate working battalions (ORB), subordinate to the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

The geography of distribution of Japanese prisoners of war in the USSR was extremely wide. 71 camp administrations for Japanese prisoners were created in 30 regions of the Soviet Union. For example, the first batches of Japanese were distributed as follows. 75 thousand people were sent to the Primorsky Territory, 65 thousand people to the Khabarovsk Territory, 40 thousand people to the Chita Region, 200 thousand people to the Irkutsk Region, and 16 thousand to the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. people, to the Krasnoyarsk Territory - 20 thousand people, to the Altai Territory - 14 thousand people, to the Kazakh SSR - 50 thousand people, to the Uzbek SSR - 20 thousand people. There were Japanese in the Moscow region, and in Norilsk, and in Kharkov, and in Ufa, and in Kazan, and in Omsk, and in Vladimir, and in Ivanovo, and in Tbilisi.

Each camp administration included numerous camp departments. In addition, there were so-called “business trips” - small groups of prisoners of war working separately from the main camp departments. Each camp administration included an operational security department with an anti-fascist department, security, regime, accounting departments, a political department, etc. In turn, in the camp departments there were instructors in anti-fascist work and inspectors for personnel records. Japanese language translators also worked in the camp administration. They were used mainly in operational investigative work, and those who did not know the language well were used in accounting departments. The accounting departments monitored the movement of prisoners of war and kept records of the dead, which were regularly reported to the regional, territorial and republican departments of internal affairs. The camp system also included special hospitals, infirmaries and health departments for prisoners of war. Camp departments moved for various reasons: some due to a new construction site or a road under construction, and some due to the extinction or repatriation of the contingent.

It should be noted that there were not enough camps ready to receive Japanese prisoners. About a third of them were created in a hurry from scratch. Often the prisoners themselves built their own homes, first dugouts, and then barracks.

To meet prisoners of war from the trains, the regional NKVD departments allocated special groups of authorized operatives who stopped the looting of the convoy and opposed the sale and exchange of uniforms by the Japanese for food and tobacco. Due to the fact that Japanese uniforms were not designed for cold climates, prisoners of war assigned to such areas found themselves practically naked. Thus, of those who arrived in the Khabarovsk Territory, 71% of the Japanese were dressed in overcoats, 50% did not have sweaters or padded jackets, 78% wore fur boots that were not suitable for snow cover. Therefore, the camp leadership requested that 75 thousand sheepskin coats, 75 thousand felt boots, 50 thousand padded jackets, and 50 thousand cotton trousers be sent to provide for the prisoners of war.

High-ranking Japanese military personnel were immediately separated from the main mass; they were not sent to do chores, but were kept separately, as war criminals. At the same time, weapons development specialists and those who were engaged in research in the field of weapons of mass destruction were selected to continue scientific activities in the “sharashkas” (scientific institutions in the Gulag system).

The vast majority of prisoners of war were between 20 and 40 years old. About 40% of them were peasants by origin, the percentage of workers reached 30%. People of various civilian professions were captured - teachers, salesmen, railway workers, clerks, priests, agronomists, cooks, builders, signalmen, mechanics, welders, drivers, topographers, accountants, doctors, fishermen, bank employees, gardeners, pharmacists, hairdressers, lumberjacks, miners, sailors, etc.

Most Japanese prisoners of war were employed in the timber industry - 26.1%, about 23.5% of the total number of prisoners of war worked in the mining industry, in agriculture - 12.2%, in mechanical engineering - 8.3%, in industrial and civil construction - 8.3%; about 0.07% of prisoners of war worked in the defense industry.

Poor rations, poor housing, lack of medicine, exhausting and unproductive manual labor - all this led to increased mortality among the “contingent” in the winter of 1945–1946. 80% of the Japanese who died in captivity occurred during this winter.

Life and work of prisoners of war in camps, medical care, etc. regulated by the normative documents of the NKVD, providing for almost “paradise” conditions for the Japanese. However, there was simply no real opportunity to carry out most of them locally.

The daily routine of the camp department was as follows.

1. Get up – 6.00
2. Roll call – 6.30
3. Breakfast – 7.00
4. Departure to work – 7.30
5. Lunch break – 14.00 –15.00
6. End of work and dinner 19.00 – 20.00
7. Evening verification – 21.00
8. Bedtime – 22.00

However, in most cases this was only on paper. Almost everywhere the working day was 12 hours, with rare days off, and meals were taken twice a day - morning and evening.

The food supply standards were determined by the corresponding order of the NKVD of the USSR dated September 28, 1945. The daily food set according to norm No. 1 looked like this: bread - 300 g, rice - 300 g, cereal or flour - 100 g, meat - 50 g, fish - 100 g , vegetable fats - 10 g, fresh or salted vegetables - 600 g, miso (bean seasoning) - 30 g, sugar - 15 g, salt - 15 g, tea - 3 g, laundry soap - 300 g per month. For prisoners of war engaged in heavy physical work in economic agencies and camps, the norms for sugar and vegetables increased by 25%. Additional quotas of bread and rice were given to them depending on the fulfillment of production standards. The supply of bread and rice increased in equal quantities: when producing 50% of the established norm - by 25 grams, when producing from 50 to 80% of the established norm - by 50 grams, when producing from 101% and above the established norm - by 100 grams. Of course, food packages for patients in the hospital, as well as for officers and generals, were higher.

Again, this was on paper. Moreover, it was so good and there was so much of everything that 90% of the population of the Soviet Union at that time had never even seen such a diet. And the soldiers' rations were more modest. The approved standards were to provide 3,500 thousand calories per consumer per day. In fact, it didn’t always reach 2,500 thousand. Naturally, there is no need to talk about compliance with the entire range of products approved by standards. There were crumbs of the same rice in the USSR. But the main problem was different. Prisoners of war did not always receive even the food they were entitled to in the required quantities. Firstly, products were delivered extremely irregularly and not in full. Secondly, the camp authorities stole. It was only by mid-1947 that the supply of food to the camps began to improve. And even then, mainly due to the creation of subsidiary farms in the camps, where they grew vegetables or raised livestock.

According to the standards, one person was entitled to 2 square meters. m of living space. Officers lived in separate barracks (if conditions permitted), senior officers had separate rooms. In the barracks, in the middle of the passage there were iron barrels-stoves for heating, and along the passage there were continuous two-story pairs. Each prisoner of war was entitled to a full set of winter and summer clothes and shoes, linen, and bedding. There are known cases when Japanese prisoners were given captured German uniforms and only changed into Japanese ones upon repatriation. Old-timers from the Japanese camps say that in winter the Japanese wore worn-out sheepskin coats and cloth Red Army budenovkas. In the summer, samurai preferred to wear their uniform and canvas slippers with wooden soles. Some sported tarpaulin boots, having exchanged them with guards or local residents. The Japanese especially loved Russian padded jackets and sweatshirts: the camp authorities even awarded them to particularly distinguished prisoners.

The internal organizational structure of the contingent of Japanese prisoners of war was established as follows: battalion, platoon, company, section. As a rule, these were old army units and were commanded by their own officers. Prisoners of war were housed in barracks by platoon or company. The camps secretly had their own Japanese headquarters and the hierarchy accepted in the Japanese army was strictly observed. Such “liberties” were allowed by the camp authorities deliberately, since the concerns of maintaining discipline and order were transferred to the prisoners of war themselves, the camp administration only carried out general supervision. It appears that this system was successfully adopted from the Gulag camp system.

The punishments applied to prisoners of war were regulated by the disciplinary regulations of the Red Army. The head of the camp had the right: to reprimand before the formation at roll call; reprimand in an order, subject to simple arrest with detention in a guardhouse for up to 20 days and strict arrest for up to 10 days. In addition, he could deprive a prisoner of war who committed an offense of the right to correspondence for up to two months or the right to use money for the same period. Prisoners of war who regularly violated the regime, “had a tendency to escape,” or spoke unfavorably about the Soviet system, were sent to a penal battalion. Penalties were sent to the most difficult areas of work and were deprived of additional food and correspondence standards. For the most malicious violators of the regime, there was a punishment cell in the penal units. And with systematic refusals to work, prisoners of war could be brought to criminal liability. All cases of crimes committed by prisoners of war were tried by a military tribunal according to Soviet laws.

As a rule, prisoner of war camps were surrounded by a fence with barbed wire, and guards were stationed at watchtowers and checkpoints. Initially, prisoners of war were guarded with the strictness adopted in the Gulag. Depending on the working conditions and the possibility of escape, guards were also posted at the prisoner of war labor sites. For example, at logging sites, a detachment of prisoners of war of 50-70 people was led to work by two guards. There was nowhere to run. Over time, the regime of detention of the Japanese began to soften, they were able to move relatively freely around the villages and communicate with the local population. Although the security was never completely removed.

Work and life in the camps

The main purpose of the army of thousands of Japanese prisoners of war was to use it as cheap labor. The prisoner of war was obliged not only to compensate with his labor the cost of living in the camp, but also to generate income for the state. The forced or forced nature of the labor of prisoners of war was determined by the fact that:

a) forced to work;

b) working conditions and pay (or lack thereof) were completely determined by the force;

c) leaving or refusing work was not allowed through measures of physical coercion and the threat of punishment under Soviet law.

Articles 50 and 52 of the Geneva Convention prohibit the use of prisoners of war in work of a military nature or purpose; health threatening or dangerous. However, these articles fell into the category of ignored in the USSR. Therefore, prisoners of war worked mainly in such prohibited jobs. In particular, in Khakassia they worked in Montenegrin coal mines and taiga logging sites.

The performance of work by prisoners was regulated by the “Regulations on the Labor Use of Prisoners of War” adopted by the NKVD on September 29, 1945. Labor was obligated on all privates and non-commissioned officers, who thus reimbursed the costs of their maintenance. In turn, the camp administration had to ensure the most efficient use of the contingent in order to compensate the state for the costs of maintaining the camp. Medical labor commissions created in each camp determined the category of a prisoner of war’s ability to work based on his state of health. Those assigned to the 1st and 2nd categories (suitable for heavy and moderate physical work) were involved in work at industrial facilities and construction, while the contingent of the 3rd category performed the duties of camp servants.

In reality, the daily life of the Japanese did not always look as smooth as on paper, which was explained by financial difficulties and the poor conditions of the camps, especially in 1945–1946. Already in 1947, the working conditions of Japanese prisoners of war were close to the conditions in which Soviet citizens worked.

The above-mentioned Regulations determined the amount of monetary remuneration and other methods of rewarding prisoners of war (better living conditions, priority provision of clothing, etc.), as well as penalties for failure to comply with production standards, careless attitude to work or its disruption (from reprimanding to transferring the offender to Military tribunal). Employees of the production planning departments of the camps staffed work teams, provided them with tools, were responsible for using workers in accordance with their qualifications, provided information on labor output to the accounting department, monitored the results of meeting planned targets, etc. According to the Regulations, wages were limited to 150– 200 rubles per month, and there were no restrictions on payment for coal mining. This made it possible to improve nutrition through the purchase of food by prisoners of war at Co-optorg points in the camps. They also bought food and clothing illegally from the local population.

At first, the organization of labor processes was at an extremely low level - there were no normal production conditions, with the onset of winter, heating points were not created, prisoners of war did not have clothes and tools, and failure to comply with safety requirements led to high injuries.

The high mortality rate of Japanese prisoners of war on the territory of the USSR was caused by various factors, including the above-mentioned poor-quality and meager food, harsh climate, hard work far from their homeland without any hope for the best. The Japanese also died as a result of accidents at work and at home. The percentage of fatalities from injuries ranged from 2.7% to 8%, depending on the hazard of the work. On average, 5.1% of prisoners of war died from injuries. Suicides accounted for a small proportion of deaths - approximately one suicide per 100 people killed, i.e. 0.7-1.1%. Their surge occurred at the beginning of 1946, when it became clear to many that they would not survive. The Japanese also died during unfortunate escapes.

In terms of mortality percentage, forestry “took precedence” - 30% of all Japanese deaths in the USSR were in this industry. 23.2% of prisoners of war died in the mining industry, 15.1% in agriculture, and 9.6% in mechanical engineering. The high mortality rate among prisoners of war was in the energy sector, where every sixth Japanese died, and in the oil production and defense industries - every fifth. The lowest mortality rate was among those who worked in the repair of railway equipment and mechanisms - only every ninety-eighth prisoner of war died here, and in the construction of shipping and irrigation canals - every forty-second.

Over the entire period, 39,738 Japanese died in the camps, or 7.2% of the total number who ended up in the Soviet Union. This figure is half the mortality rate of prisoners from the Eastern Front, which was 15%. And this was determined not only by hatred of the Germans, but also by a more loyal attitude towards the Japanese. Firstly, the figure was greatly undermined by the mortality rate of Germans who came from the Stalingrad cauldron, of whom about 7% survived. Secondly, feeding one Japanese prisoner of war cost the budget almost twice as much as feeding a German prisoner of war. Thus, until September 1946, a Japanese prisoner ate on 4.06 rubles, and a German on 2.94 rubles. From September 1946 to December 1947, the Japanese received grub for 11.33 rubles, and the German for 6.49 rubles. Since December 1947, the Japanese were fed for 11.27 rubles, and the Germans for 6.35 rubles.

Oddly enough, the most difficult situation was found among Japanese prisoners of war who were in the ORB (separate labor battalions) of the Ministry of the Armed Forces. It did not recognize the directives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued regarding prisoners and “ruined” them mercilessly. As can be seen from the surviving inspection reports, in the spring of 1946 the working day in the ORB was 10-14 hours, prisoners of war of the III working ability group worked full time. The breaks between meals were up to 12 hours or more. Not a single Gulag camp, so picturesquely described by modern liberals, could afford this. The very next day the entire camp leadership would have been exiled from the world, if not for cruel treatment, then for failure to fulfill production plans. And here the Red Army is victorious, you can’t even think badly about it, even today.

The USSR, as if recognizing the Geneva Convention of June 27, 1929, considered the Japanese prisoners of war only when it was beneficial for it. Therefore, the norm of the convention, that every prisoner of war had the right to send a message to his family about his captivity and state of health within a week after arriving at the camp, began to be implemented only in October 1946, a year after captivity. According to special instructions for sending postal items to Japanese prisoners of war from the USSR, a special standard “prisoner of war postal card” was installed with space for a return reply. Letters sent not on letterhead and to other countries were not accepted. Each prisoner of war was allowed to send one letter to his relatives every three months; prisoners of war who exceeded the production quota were allowed to send two letters every three months.

Japanese prisoners of war worked in logging, in the construction of residential and industrial buildings, and in the construction of highways. Thus, in Khabarovsk, the Japanese built the Higher Party School, the Dynamo stadium, and a large number of residential two-story brick buildings in the working-class areas of the city. In Tashkent, a Textile Plant, buildings of the Central Telegraph and the Ministry of Culture, theaters named after. Navoi, them. Mukimi. And in the city of Chirchik there are the Khimmash and Selmash factories. They stretched a high-voltage power line from Bekabad to Tashkent, which to this day supplies a significant part of Tashkent with electricity. The Farhad hydroelectric power station located in Bekabad was also built with the participation of three thousand Japanese prisoners of war. In the Primorsky Territory, they built the Nakhodka trade port and the Sedanka hydroelectric complex in Vladivostok, and built entire residential areas in cities. The Japanese also worked on the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, on the mines of the Khakaszoloto trust, on the construction of the Abakan irrigation canal, and at various industrial enterprises. The Japanese also restored the mines of Donbass and the enterprises of Kharkov and Zaporozhye. One could still list thousands and thousands of facilities where Japanese prisoners of war worked. But, despite the huge volume of various works performed, their activities, like the cheaper Germans in the GUPVI system, were unprofitable throughout all the years of their existence. Probably the Soviet leadership, universally quoting the classics of Marxism-Leninism, did not understand the essence of their works, which proved that slave labor was low-productive.

According to the recollections of old-timers, the civilian population treated prisoners kindly, in winter the Japanese warmed themselves in private houses, the housewives gave them hot tea, often shared poor post-war food, surrounding them with the human warmth that they so needed. The Japanese willingly talked about their homeland, taught Russian children the Japanese language, sculpted figures, carved pipes and made dolls for local children. Most of the population of the Soviet Union understood that the Japanese did not attack the USSR and did not conduct military operations on its territory. It should be noted that the sympathy of the local population for Japanese prisoners of war was also a derivative of the quick victory of the Soviet Army in the Far East with relatively small losses.

Deep sensual relationships arose between the Japanese and Soviet girls, although then they had to part. But there are many children of Russian-Japanese origin left. Often Russian women married Japanese for other reasons - they had money and did not drink “bitter”. Some Japanese were able to stay with new families, some maintained relationships in absentia, helped their children financially, some began to regularly come to visit “Russian” families in the early 90s. Some Japanese, having retired in their homeland, returned, live in the same city with their adult children, work, teach Japanese, and teach children at a music school to play national instruments.

In the camps, starting from the later time of their stay in the USSR, the national customs and holidays of Japan were observed, self-government and self-service were practiced, amateur artistic activities were organized, interest clubs were created, and even concerts were given. During their leisure time, the Japanese staged performances, learned Russian songs, which in their melodiousness reminded them very much of their own, painted pictures, and also went in for sports. But this did not happen everywhere, and not always on a voluntary basis. Behind all this, the well-established Gulag system is clearly visible.

A large number of memoirs of prisoners of war have been published in Japan, most of which describe in detail life in the camp and the difficulties that the Japanese had to face. As a rule, they boiled down to the following: difficulty of acclimatization - unusual cold for residents of the country, where in most of the territory the temperature rarely drops below zero degrees; unusual and low-quality food, the basis of which was potatoes, cabbage, bread, lack of rice - a product so necessary for every Japanese; the absolute lack of rights of a prisoner of war in the camp; the cruel treatment encountered in some camps on the part of guards and camp staff; the inability to contact relatives and friends during the initial period of captivity, the lack of information about them among prisoners of war; complete lack of information about the further fate of prisoners of war, etc.

Brainwashing

The USSR would not be like itself if even the flies that accidentally flew across the border were not brainwashed by Soviet ideology. Therefore, political departments operated in the camps. They organized anti-fascist schools, supervised the production of newspapers and leaflets, kept records of prisoners of war loyal to the Soviet system, and supplied the camps with propaganda and educational literature. Employees of the political department regularly gave lectures on social and political issues, identified prisoners of war who were friendly towards the socialist system, in order to later use them as political instructors in the camps. Also, the Japanese were actively involved as translators during group classes. Some prisoners of war were sincerely imbued with socialist ideas, others only pretended and cooperated with the camp administration in order to replace hard physical labor with “educational” work among prisoners. In addition, active participation in public life could speed up the return home - loyalty to the Soviet state was one of the priority criteria when sent to Japan.

Groups of activists were formed from the most loyal prisoners of war, who were trained in ideological training centers in Moscow, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk and other large cities. Then they went to camps, where they already worked as political instructors. For the sake of truth, it should be noted that many “activists” during their return to Japan ended up overboard ships at sea, and those who sailed ended up in the dungeons of the special services.

According to reports, up to 70% of all prisoners were involved in the activities of “democratic circles” and “prisoner of war schools.” One of the educational levers was the Stakhanov movement organized in all camps - the brigades recognized as the best received challenge banners. Clubs, libraries, which were stocked with ideologically correct literature in different languages, as well as anti-fascist rooms operated locally. All public areas were equipped with visual propaganda - wall newspapers, portraits of communist leaders, etc. The camps received episodes from the biography of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin translated into Japanese, articles and excerpts from Lenin’s collected works in a format adapted for the Japanese.

Another propaganda tool was the newspaper Nippon Shimbun (Japanese Newspaper), which was published in camp No. 16 in the Khabarovsk Territory, and from there distributed to other GUPVI camps. In addition to political articles aimed at promoting the ideas of socialism, works of art that also had political overtones were published here. Many prisoners of war did not take this newspaper seriously, precisely because it was deeply politicized. But for Soviet ideologists, the process itself was important, not its result.

In general, the majority of Japanese prisoners of war were rather indifferent to communist propaganda - attending political classes and showing loyalty made camp life easier. However, there are cases when repatriates arriving in Japan, standing on board the ship, chanted “The Internationale” with all their might.

Viewings of Soviet films were also a form of propaganda. Before the session, an instructor-translator spoke to explain the content of the painting, decorating it with anti-militarist propaganda. There are known cases when both circus performers and Soviet artists came to the prisoners. But these are rather one-time, exceptional events.

In order to show the effectiveness of their hard work, the political departments established a procedure: before leaving for their homeland, prisoners of war had to write a collective thank you to the Soviet leadership and, of course, to Stalin. Such messages to the leader were presented in the form of a gift offering in beautifully decorated cases or even on special stands. The Russian State Military Archive still contains more than 200 albums in which the Japanese left gratitude to Stalin and praised life in the USSR. By the way, there are not only albums, but also a huge banner with gratitude and signatures of Japanese prisoners. All letters are embroidered with gold threads, which were pulled from the shoulder straps of Japanese officers.

And the pinnacle of insanity was the desire of political workers to obtain written commitments from the Japanese that those in Japan would praise the way of life in the USSR and join the Japanese Communist Party. MGB operatives joined them, trying in every possible way to get the Japanese to sign a subscription to cooperate with Soviet intelligence after returning home.

It is natural that people from the lower classes of Japanese society were more susceptible to propaganda and recruitment, while the officers usually retained their monarchical views. However, the desire of Soviet ideologists to launch the virus of communism and agents into Japan through repatriated prisoners of war turned out to be a failure.

Repatriation

According to the Geneva (1929) and Hague (1907) conventions, prisoners are supposed to be released after the end of the war. The USSR and Japan, as is known, concluded an agreement to end the state of war between themselves only on October 19, 1956. However, as noted above, the USSR did not sign the convention, and carried out only those provisions that it wanted.

Therefore, repatriation was carried out according to an unknown principle. So in 1946, 18,616 people were sent to Japan; in 1947 – 166,200 people, in 1948 – 175 thousand people, in 1949 – 97 thousand, in 1950 – 1585 people. 2,988 people remained in the USSR for various reasons - convicts were detained until the end of their sentences, sick people who did not want to return. The repatriation process continued until 1956. And only on December 23, 1956, the remaining 1025 Japanese convicted of various military crimes were amnestied in honor of the signing of the Soviet-Japanese agreement to end the war and sent home.

The repatriated Japanese were sent to the Far East in the city of Nakhodka, where the prisoners were met and received by representatives of the allies: Americans, British and representatives of the Japanese administration. To ensure the delivery of repatriated people to the port, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a special order that regulated the conditions for transporting prisoners of war, supplying them with clothes and shoes, food, bed linen, and blankets. The echelons were provided with medical personnel and medicines, and the necessary sanitary conditions were maintained in them. The heads of the camp departments were personally responsible for the delivery of the Japanese until they were handed over to the repatriation authorities. The prisoners' underwear was disinfected before loading onto the train to prevent the spread of infections. If someone fell ill along the way, he was removed from the train and sent to the nearest special hospital for prisoners of war.

The “Siberian captivity” saga did not end there. The Japanese government still has grievances against the Soviet side, some of which are still relevant today. Thus, the Soviet authorities did not issue work certificates to the repatriates, as is customary in international practice; As a result, the years of captivity for the Japanese were not taken into account when calculating pensions. In addition, Japanese returning from Soviet camps did not receive any compensation from the government and were placed in a discriminatory position compared to their other compatriots. Only those who survived until 2009 received payments. It was then that the Law on Compensation was passed, former prisoners received symbolic payments, but the relatives of already deceased prisoners of war were not entitled to anything.

Many Japanese prisoners of war were convicted already in the camps, mainly under Article 58 - this is anti-Soviet activity. In most cases, the trial was unfair, but the rehabilitation of such prisoners began only in the second half of the 1990s. Not all prisoners in the USSR received wages for forced labor, and this issue also remained a subject of controversy for a long time.

For many years, the Soviet Union did not provide lists of Japanese dead and their burial places, and did not allow relatives of the victims to visit cemeteries. During the 90s. Some of the problems were solved, but not all.

Those who returned from Soviet captivity were carefully checked by the Japanese authorities for the presence of Soviet spies. In addition, at home they were subjected to repression: it was difficult to get a good job, free treatment, etc. Moreover, almost all their lives the Japanese who were in Soviet captivity were considered “communists” and were treated accordingly. Are they guilty of this though?

On the territory of the USSR, dead Japanese prisoners of war are buried in approximately 700 places. Almost all cemeteries are in a neglected state, most of them have long been destroyed. Until the 1990s, the Soviet Union did not provide lists of Japanese dead and their burial places. It was only in 1991 that a special agreement was concluded between the government of Japan and the USSR on the reburial of the remains of Japanese prisoners of war in Japan. To implement this action, it was necessary to determine the burial sites and the number of buried prisoners of war. But the Union collapsed, and the agreement remained unfulfilled.

Currently, about 200 thousand people from among those who were held captive are alive. In Japan they are united in almost 60 public organizations. Now, on their initiative, groups of Japanese are traveling around the territory of the former Union and trying to do what their government did not do: take home the remains, perpetuate the memory of the dead with a rare monument. Now several dozen monuments to Japanese prisoners of war, erected by the Japanese for their compatriots, are scattered across the vast expanses of the former USSR.

On the quiet Tashkent street Yakkasarayskaya, there is a house that is included in all reference books and guides to the countries of Central Asia that are published in Japan. This is the only museum on the territory of the former USSR dedicated to the stay of Japanese prisoners of war during the Second World War on the territory of Uzbekistan. Documents, photographs, and household items of those years, exhibited in the museum exhibition, give an idea of ​​how the life of twenty-three thousand soldiers and officers of the former Kwantung Army passed, who unexpectedly found themselves in a distant Asian republic.

In conclusion. All decrees of the USSR State Defense Committee and regulations of executive authorities in relation to Japanese prisoners of war were classified as “top secret”. Why do you think this was done?

Based on materials from the sites: https://ru.wikipedia.org; http://dailybiysk.ru; https://tvrain.ru/ http://waralbum.ru; http://russian7.ru; https://mikle1.livejournal.com; https://rus.azattyq.org/ https://news.rambler.ru; http://www.warmech.ru; https://www.crimea.kp.ru; http://warspot.ru; http://www.memorial.krsk.ru.