FOCUS | Former member of Japanese germ-warfare detachment during World War II repents in NE China

HARBIN, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hideo Shimizu, a former member of Unit 731, the notorious Japanese germ-warfare detachment during World War II, visited the Exhibition Hall of Evidences of Crime Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Tuesday. 

Shimizu, 94, was among the last batch of Unit 731 Youth Corps members sent by Japan to Harbin, China, where he spent more than four months witnessing the war crimes committed by the unit, including the cultivation of pathogens, human dissections, and human experiments. He fled China with the retreating Japanese forces on August 14, 1945. 

After a 79-year hiatus, Hideo Shimizu returned to China to acknowledge the atrocities committed by the invading Japanese forces and to offer sincere repentance and apologies to the victims.