Historians reveal Asian POW camp atrocities

Concentration camp serves as a warning to avoid history repeating itself

During World War II, Nazi Germany massacred 6 million Jews and built a number of concentration camps including the notorious Auschwitz in Poland.

At the same time, Japanese fascists also had many concentration camps in Asian battlefields. Mukden POW Camp, also known as Shenyang World War II Allied Prisoners Camp, was set up in the capital of Liaoning province to hold POWs and now serves as a reminder of the inhuman brutality of the time.

Compared to well-known Auschwitz, Shenyang prisoner camp has not drawn much public attention until recently.

Construction of the camp was completed in July 1943 but the first batch of POWs were sent to Shenyang in November 1942 and were temporarily detained in Beidaying, a former Chinese Army barrack in the provincial capital.

The POWs were transferred to the camp, where they were imprisoned until the last day of rescue by the former Soviet Union on Sept 11, 1945.

The number of prisoners at the camp remained at about 2,000 as some people died as others arrived.

Both Shenyang and Auschwitz are evidence of violations of international justice and human rights.

The actions of the Japanese army in Shenyang went beyond those of the Nazi Germans in Auschwitz so the camp has been called the "oriental Auschwitz".

Several similarities and differences are found when comparing the Shenyang camp and Auschwitz.

The purpose of building each camp was different. The German Nazis massacred Jews for genocide while the Japanese regarded Northeast China as their rear base so they set up the Shenyang camp for easy control of allied prisoners and to use high-ranking captives to add weight to their workforce when necessary.

Ordinary prisoners could serve as skilled workers as well as important sources of intelligence by intercepting letters.

Shenyang was believed to be the POW camp with captives from the most countries. POWs in Auschwitz are all Jews while those in Shenyang came from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore and France.

The rank of prisoners in Shenyang was much higher than in Auschwitz. The Shenyang camp was set up specifically to lock up the highest-ranking officials during World War II. Among the prisoners, 76 were brigadier generals and above, including Major General Jonathan Wainwright, and hundreds of field officers.

The Japanese army maltreated prisoners with more varied punishments. POWs in Shenyang suffered from reprimands and assaults by guards and were often forced to stand outside in the sun, rain and cold winter weather. The maximum duration for solitary confinement was 30 days and common confinement was 25 days.

The death rate at Shenyang was 16 percent, four times higher than most other war camps. Many prisoners died of cold, physical and psychological torture and heavy labor, particularly when they first came to Shenyang.

The Japanese army used prisoners to carry out bacteria tests. These included tests for cholera and pestis, which killed more than 200 prisoners from the United States, according to the death record list, which is on display at the former camp's museum.

POWs in Shenyang were sent to work in the MKK factory in Shenyang. The factory manufactured weapons and parts for Japanese aircraft. Chinese workers at the factory gave food to POWs and helped them escape, which embodied the friendship between Chinese and Americans during that period.

POWs from different countries helped each other and showed a united strength at the time when Japanese militarism was a common enemy worldwide.

Both Auschwitz and Shenyang have had a worldwide influence. Shenyang is the only camp that was built in the Asian battlefields during World War II that still exists.

The ways that Japan treated POWs and Nazi Germany treated the Jews are stains on human civilization. They committed crimes, violated human rights, showed an absence of morality and humanity and disregarded international laws.

All this calls for reflections by and warnings to later generations.

Peace-loving people in the world need to guard against the revival of trends that led to the atrocities to avoid history repeating itself.

The author Wang Jianxue is vice-chairman of the China Association of Historians Studying Modern Chinese Materials and chairman of the "9.18 Incident" Study Research Institute. The second author Wang Jie is an associate research fellow at the Liaoning Academy of Social Science.

For China Daily

US veteran John Lippard (middle) visits the Shenyang World War II Allied Prisoners Camp, where more than 2,000 allied prisoners of war from eight countries were imprisoned between 1942 and 1945. Zhao Jingdong / for China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 08/29/2014 page16)