Japanese history. The most terrible medieval tortures for girls

Until December 7, 1941, there was not a single military conflict with an Asian army in American history. There were only a few minor skirmishes in the Philippines during the war with Spain. This led to American soldiers and sailors underestimating the enemy.
The US Army heard stories of the brutality with which the Japanese invaders treated the Chinese population in the 1940s. But before the clashes with the Japanese, the Americans had no idea what their opponents were capable of.
Routine beatings were so common that it is not even worthy of mention. However, in addition, captive Americans, British, Greeks, Australians and Chinese had to face slave labor, forced marches, cruel and unusual torture, and even dismemberment.
Below are some of the most shocking atrocities committed by the Japanese army during World War II.
15. CANNIBALISM

It’s no secret that during times of famine people begin to eat their own kind. Cannibalism occurred in the expedition led by Donner, and even the Uruguay rugby team that crashed in the Andes, the subject of the film The Alive. But this always happened only in extreme circumstances. But it is impossible not to shudder when hearing stories about eating the remains of dead soldiers or cutting off parts from living people. The Japanese camps were deeply isolated, surrounded by impenetrable jungle, and the soldiers guarding the camp often starved as well as the prisoners, resorting to horrendous means to satisfy their hunger. But for the most part, cannibalism occurred due to mockery of the enemy. A report from the University of Melbourne states:
“According to the Australian lieutenant, he saw many bodies that were missing parts, even a scalped head without a torso. He states that the condition of the remains clearly indicated that they had been dismembered for cooking."
14. NON-HUMAN EXPERIMENTS ON PREGNANT WOMEN


Dr. Joseph Mengele was a famous Nazi scientist who experimented on Jews, twins, dwarfs and other concentration camp prisoners and was wanted by the international community after the war for trial for numerous war crimes. But the Japanese had their own scientific institutions, where they carried out equally terrible experiments on people.
The so-called Unit 731 conducted experiments on Chinese women who were raped and impregnated. They were purposefully infected with syphilis so that they could find out whether the disease would be inherited. Often the condition of the fetus was studied directly in the mother's womb without the use of anesthesia, since these women were considered nothing more than animals to be studied.
13. SCARDING AND SUTUPING OF THE GENITALIA IN THE MOUTH


In 1944, on the volcanic island of Peleliu, a soldier Marine Corps While having lunch with a friend, I saw the figure of a man heading towards them across the open area of ​​the battlefield. As the man approached, it became clear that he was also a Marine soldier. The man walked bent over and had difficulty moving his legs. He was covered in blood. The sergeant decided that he was just a wounded man who had not been taken from the battlefield, and he and several colleagues hurried to meet him.
What they saw made them shudder. His mouth was sewn shut and the front of his trousers was cut. The face was distorted with pain and horror. Having taken him to the doctors, they later learned from them what really happened. He was captured by the Japanese, where he was beaten and brutally tortured. The Japanese army soldiers cut off his genitals, stuffed them into his mouth, and sewed him up. It is unknown whether the soldier was able to survive such a horrific outrage. But the reliable fact is that instead of intimidating, this event produced reverse effect, filling the hearts of the soldiers with hatred and giving them additional strength to fight for the island.
12. SATISFYING DOCTORS’ CURIOSITY


People practicing medicine in Japan did not always work to alleviate the plight of the sick. During World War II, Japanese "doctors" often performed brutal procedures on enemy soldiers or ordinary citizens in the name of science or simply to satisfy curiosity. Somehow they became interested in what would happen to the human body if it was twisted for a long time. To do this, they placed people in centrifuges and spun them sometimes for hours. People were thrown against the walls of the cylinder and the faster it spun, the more pressure was exerted on internal organs. Many died within a few hours and their bodies were removed from the centrifuge, but some were spun until they literally exploded or fell apart.
11. AMPUTATION

If a person was suspected of espionage, then he was punished with all cruelty. Not only soldiers of Japan's enemy armies were subject to torture, but also residents of the Philippines, who were suspected of providing intelligence information for the Americans and British. The favorite punishment was to simply cut them alive. First one arm, then perhaps a leg and fingers. Next came the ears. But all this did not lead to a quick death so that the victim suffered for a long time. There was also the practice of stopping bleeding after cutting off a hand, when several days were given for recovery to continue torture. Men, women and children were amputated; no one was spared from the atrocities of the Japanese soldiers.
10. TORTURE BY DROWNING


Many believe that waterboarding was first used by US soldiers in Iraq. Such torture is contrary to the country's constitution and appears unusual and cruel. This measure may be considered torture, but it may not be considered that way. It is definitely a difficult ordeal for the prisoner, but it does not put his life at risk. The Japanese used waterboarding not only for interrogation, but also tied prisoners at an angle and inserted tubes into their nostrils. Thus, the water went directly into their lungs. It didn't just make you feel like you were drowning, like waterboarding, but the victim actually seemed to drown if the torture went on for too long.
He could try to spit out enough water so as not to choke, but this was not always possible. Waterboarding was the second most common cause of death for prisoners after beatings.
9. FREEZING AND BURNING

Another kind of inhumane research human body was a study of the effects of cold on the body. Often, as a result of freezing, the skin fell off the victim's bones. Of course, the experiments were carried out on living, breathing people who had to live with limbs from which the skin had fallen off for the rest of their lives. But not only the impact was studied low temperatures on the body, but also high. They burned the skin on a person’s hand over a torch, and the prisoner ended his life in terrible agony.
8. RADIATION


X-rays were still poorly understood at the time, and their usefulness and effectiveness in diagnosing disease or as a weapon were in question. Irradiation of prisoners was used especially frequently by Detachment 731. Prisoners were gathered under a shelter and exposed to radiation. They were taken out at certain intervals to study the physical and psychological effects of the radiation. With particularly large doses of radiation, part of the body burned and the skin literally fell off. The victims died in agony, as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki later, but much more slowly.
7. BURNING ALIVE


Japanese soldiers from small islands in the South Pacific were hardened, cruel people who lived in caves, where there was not enough food, there was nothing to do, but there was a lot of time to cultivate hatred of enemies in their hearts. Therefore, when American soldiers were captured by them, they were absolutely merciless to them. Most often, American sailors were burned alive or partially buried. Many of them were found under rocks where they were thrown to decompose. The prisoners were tied hand and foot, then thrown into a dug hole, which was then slowly buried. Perhaps the worst thing was that the victim's head was left outside, which was then urinated on or eaten by animals.
6. BEHAVIORATION


In Japan it was considered an honor to die from a sword. If the Japanese wanted to disgrace the enemy, they brutally tortured him. Therefore, for those captured, dying by beheading was lucky. It was much worse to be subjected to the tortures listed above. If ammunition ran out in battle, the Americans used a rifle with a bayonet, while the Japanese always carried a long blade and a long curved sword. Soldiers were lucky to die from decapitation and not from a blow to the shoulder or chest. If the enemy found himself on the ground, he was chopped to death, rather than his head being cut off.
5. DEATH BY TIDE


Since Japan and its surrounding islands are surrounded by ocean waters, this type of torture was common among the inhabitants. Drowning is a terrible type of death. Even worse was the expectation of imminent death from the tide within a few hours. Prisoners were often tortured for several days in order to learn military secrets. Some could not stand the torture, but there were also those who only gave their name, rank and serial number. A special type of death was prepared for such stubborn people. The soldier was left on the shore, where he had to listen for several hours to the water getting closer and closer. Then, the water covered the prisoner's head and, within a few minutes of coughing, filled the lungs, after which death occurred.
4. TORTURE WITH BAMBOO


Bamboo grows in hot tropical areas and grows noticeably faster than other plants, several centimeters per day. And when the devilish mind of man invented the most terrible way to die, it was impalement. The victims were impaled on bamboo, which slowly grew into their bodies. The unfortunates suffered from inhuman pain when their muscles and organs were pierced by the plant. Death occurred as a result of organ damage or blood loss.
3. COOKING ALIVE


Another activity of Unit 731 was exposing victims to small doses of electricity. With a small impact it caused a lot of pain. If it was prolonged, then the internal organs of the prisoners were boiled and burned. Interesting fact about the intestines and gallbladder is that they have nerve endings. Therefore, when exposed to them, the brain sends pain signals to other organs. It's like cooking the body from the inside. Imagine swallowing a hot piece of iron to understand what the unfortunate victims experienced. The pain will be felt throughout the body until the soul leaves it.
2. FORCED WORK AND MARCHES


Thousands of prisoners of war were sent to Japanese concentration camps, where they lived the life of slaves. A large number of prisoners was a serious problem for the army, since it was impossible to supply them sufficient quantity food and medicine. In concentration camps, prisoners were starved, beaten, and forced to work until they died. The lives of the prisoners meant nothing to the guards and officers monitoring them. Moreover, if work force was needed on an island or another part of the country, the prisoners of war had to march hundreds of kilometers there in unbearable heat. Countless soldiers died along the way. Their bodies were thrown into ditches or left there.
1. FORCE TO KILL COMRADES AND ALLIES


Most often, beatings of prisoners were used during interrogations. The documents state that at first the prisoner was spoken to in a friendly manner. Then, if the interrogating officer understood the futility of such a conversation, was bored or simply angry, then the prisoner of war was beaten with fists, sticks or other objects. The beating continued until the torturers got tired. In order to make the interrogation more interesting, they brought in another prisoner and forced him to continue under pain. own death from beheading. Often he had to beat a prisoner to death. Few things in war were as difficult for a soldier as causing suffering to a comrade. These stories filled the Allied troops with even greater determination in the fight against the Japanese.

Japan is a very developed country, but its people are known to us for their oddities that only the Japanese themselves can understand. Many oddities are associated with the traditions of this people, as evidenced by Interesting Facts O ancient japan that are waiting for you next.

For more than two and a half centuries, Japan was a closed country.

In 1600, after a long period feudal fragmentation And civil wars, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder and first head of the shogunate in Edo, came to power in Japan. By 1603, he finally completed the process of unifying Japan and began to rule his " with an iron hand" Ieyasu, like his predecessor, supported trade with other countries, but was very suspicious of foreigners. This led to the fact that in 1624 trade with Spain was completely prohibited. And in 1635, a decree was issued banning the Japanese from leaving the country and banning those who had already left to return. Since 1636, foreigners (Portuguese, later Dutch) could only stay on the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor.

The Japanese were short because they didn't eat meat.

From the 6th to the 19th centuries, the average height of Japanese men was only 155 cm. This is due to the fact that it was in the 6th century that the Chinese “neighbourly” shared the philosophy of Buddhism with the Japanese. It is not clear why, but the new worldview appealed to the ruling circles of Japanese society. Vegetarianism began to be considered a path to the salvation of the soul and better reincarnation. Meat was completely excluded from the Japanese diet and the result was not long in coming: from the 6th to the 19th centuries, the average height of the Japanese decreased by 10 cm.

Trade in “Night Gold” was widespread in ancient Japan.

Night gold is a phraseological unit that denotes a product of human activity, his feces, used as a valuable and balanced fertilizer. In Japan, this practice was used quite widely. Moreover, the waste of rich people was sold at a higher price, because their food was plentiful and varied, so there was more left in the resulting “product.” nutrients. Various historical documents dating back to the 9th century detail procedures for toilet waste.

Pornography has always flourished in Japan.

Sexual themes in Japanese art arose many centuries ago and go back to ancient Japanese myths, among which the most famous is the myth about the emergence of the Japanese islands as a result of the sexual relationship of the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami. There is no hint of a disapproving attitude towards sex in the ancient monuments. “This frankness in the story about sex and literary materials,” writes Japanese cultural anthropologist Toshinao Yoneyama, “has been preserved right up to the present day... In Japanese culture there was no consciousness of original sin in relation to sex, as was the case in Christian cultures.”

Fishermen in ancient Japan used domesticated cormorants.

It all happened something like this: at night, fishermen went out to sea in a boat and lit torches to attract fish. Next, about a dozen cormorants were released, which were tied to the boat with a long rope. At the same time, the neck of each bird was slightly intercepted by a flexible collar so that it could not swallow the caught fish. As soon as the cormorants had full crops, the fishermen pulled the birds onto the boat. For their work, each bird received a reward in the form of a small fish.

In ancient Japan there was a special form of marriage - tsumadoi.

A full-fledged small family - in the form of living together - was not a typical form of marriage in Ancient Japan. The basis of family relationships was a special Japanese marriage - tsumadoi, in which the husband freely visited his wife, maintaining, in fact, a separate residence with her. For the bulk of the population, marriage took place upon reaching adulthood: at 15 for a boy and at 13 for a girl. Marriage presupposed the consent of numerous relatives, including grandparents on the wife’s side. Tsumadoi marriage did not imply monogamy, and a man was not forbidden to have several wives, as well as concubines. However, a free relationship with their wives, leaving them without a reason to marry a new wife, was not allowed by law.

There were and still are quite a lot of Christians in Japan.

Christianity appeared in Japan in the mid-16th century. The first missionary to preach the Gospel to the Japanese was the Basque Jesuit Francis Xavier. But the missionary work did not last long. Soon the shoguns began to see Christianity (as the faith of foreigners) as a threat. In 1587, the unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned the presence of missionaries in the country and began oppressing believers. To justify his actions, he pointed out that some Japanese converts had desecrated and destroyed Buddhist and Shinto shrines. The repressive policy was continued by Hideyoshi's political successor, Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1612, he banned the practice of Christianity in his domains, and in 1614 he extended this ban to all of Japan. During the Tokugawa era, about 3,000 Japanese Christians were martyred, while the rest suffered imprisonment or exile. Tokugawa policy obliged everything Japanese families register with your local Buddhist temple and receive evidence that they are not Christians.

Japanese prostitutes were divided into several ranks.

In addition to the well-known geishas, ​​who by and large were simply the leaders of ceremonies, in Japan there were also courtesans, who, in turn, were divided into several classes depending on cost: tayu (the most expensive), koshi, tsubone, santya and the cheapest - street girls, bath attendants, servants, etc. The following agreement existed unspoken: once you had chosen a girl, you had to stick with her, “settle down.” Therefore, men often kept their own courtesans. Girls of Tayu rank cost 58 momme (about 3,000 rubles) at a time, and this does not count the mandatory 18 momme for servants - another 1,000 rubles. Prostitutes of the lowest rank cost approximately 1 momme (about 50 rubles). In addition to direct payment for services, there were also associated expenses - food, drink, tips for many servants, all this could reach up to 150 momme (8000 rubles) per evening. Thus, a man supporting a courtesan could easily shell out about 29 kemme (about 580,000 rubles) in a year.

The Japanese often committed couple suicides out of unhappy love.

After the “reorganization” of prostitution in 1617, all non-family intimate life of the Japanese was moved to separate quarters like the “red light district”, where girls lived and worked. The girls could not leave the quarter unless wealthy clients bought them as wives. It was very expensive and more often than not it happened that lovers simply could not afford to be together. Despair drove such couples to “shinju” - couple suicides. The Japanese did not see anything wrong with this, because they had long revered rebirth and were completely confident that in the next life they would definitely be together.

Torture and execution have long been written into law in Japan.

To begin with, it should be said that in the Japanese legal system of the Tokugawa era there was no presumption of innocence. Every person who went to trial was considered guilty in advance. With the Tokugawa coming to power, only four types of torture remained legal in Japan: scourging, squeezing stone slabs, tying with a rope and hanging on a rope. Moreover, torture was not a punishment in itself, and its purpose was not to cause maximum suffering to the prisoner, but to obtain a sincere confession of the crime committed. It should also be noted here that torture was allowed only to those criminals who faced the death penalty for their actions. Therefore, after a sincere confession, the poor fellows were most often executed. Executions were also very different: from the banal beheading to the terrible boiling in boiling water - this was the punishment for ninjas who failed a contract killing and were captured.

Persons over the age of 14 are subject to criminal liability if they have committed murder, caused grievous bodily harm, committed rape, robbery, drug trafficking, arson, explosion, poisoning or other crimes that seriously violate public order. Complicity in a crime is the joint intentional participation of two or more persons in the commission of a crime.

The death penalty, as a punishment, was used in China for ridiculous and worthy actions.

IN Ancient China, in addition to the usual reasons for this, there was a law that threatened death penalty Anyone who would encroach on the use of saffron dye would have the royal clothes dyed with it. For wearing clothes or jewelry with dragon figures. For distorting the historical truth.

Later, it was used on cattle thieves, cigarette smugglers, pimps selling and showing pornography - the latter is reasonable.

In the 1st millennium BC, each judge invented his own reprisals against criminals and prisoners. The most common were: sawing off the foot (first they sawed off one foot, the second time the repeat offender caught the other), removal of the kneecaps, cutting off the nose, cutting off the ears, branding.

Criminals were burned at the stake, torn into two or four parts by chariots, their ribs were broken out, boiled in cauldrons, crucified (often they were simply forced to their knees, their hands tied and left in the sun).

Burying alive in the ground was especially popular. Often, in this way, prisoners were dealt with; archaeologists often discover characteristic burials of people buried alive (with open mouths, in crouched positions, sometimes a dozen people in one grave).

Castration was widely used; a significant part of those punished simply died soon after the operation from blood poisoning.

Ancient China was the kingdom of what in Chinese is called “zhou xing” - “mutilation punishments”: axes and axes, knives and saws for sawing off limbs, chisels and drills for removing kneecaps, sticks, whips, needles.

During the Han Dynasty (2nd century BC - 2nd century AD), beating with bamboo sticks or being sent to hard labor appeared.

In the 7th century AD, during the Tang Dynasty, Chinese legislation was drawn up, which, with minor changes, lasted until the beginning of the 20th century.

In an effort to make the punishment more severe, the judges came up with an execution called “carry out five types of punishment.” In this case, the criminal should have been branded, his arms or legs cut off, beaten to death with sticks, and his head put on display in the market for everyone to see.

For especially serious crimes, it was necessary to execute not only the perpetrator, but also to slaughter his entire family - his father, mother, wife, concubines, brothers and wives, sisters with husbands, children.

They did not keep convicts in prisons - it was too expensive. The prison was a rather frail structure without much security, so the main method of protection against escapes was stocks.

The most common type of last is “kanga” (or “jia”). It was used very widely: several prisoners were chained in this neck block.

During the era of the emperors of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), the stocks were rectangular board measuring one meter by one meter, with a round cutout for the neck in the center. This board consisted of two sliding parts and, after the criminal’s neck was inserted into it, it was locked with a lock, weighing approximately 10-15 kg.
In addition to the neck restraints, hand stocks and metal handcuffs were also used.

If a criminal ever tried to escape or there was a goal to torture him, he was chained to boards with a neck block for a long time, sometimes cuts were left on him so that he would be tormented by rats, bedbugs and lice.

Since the Tang Dynasty, the law has recognized three types of acceptable torture:
1) Beating with sticks. The interrogated person was placed on the ground or tied while standing, and they began to beat him with sticks on the buttocks and thighs, sometimes on the heels. The size and weight of the sticks was determined by instructions, and was different in different eras.

2) Vise for arm and leg bones - something like a Chinese finger trap, connected by strings of sticks, between which the fingers of the accused were inserted. The executioner squeezed the sticks, breaking the phalanges of the fingers, also with the legs.

3) Torture by water, brainwashing. It differed from European torture in that water was poured into the nose; before torture, the person was hung by the legs to cause swelling of the brain.

Sometimes they used the rack, torture with fire, hot iron, they were forced to swallow needles, and their nails were pulled out. They hung me up by my arms and pulled the tendons of all my joints.

Executions:

1) Decapitation - they feared it more than strangulation, although it was the most painless. The Chinese believed that in the afterlife they would look the way they met their death. The victim was stripped to the waist and made to kneel with his hands tied behind his back. After this, the executioner struck with a wide sword.

2) Removal.This was done in two ways:

A) The criminal was tied to a pole, a rope was wrapped around his neck, the ends of which were in the hands of the executioners. They slowly twist the rope with special sticks, gradually strangling the convict. The strangulation could last a very long time, since the executioners at times loosened the rope and allowed the almost strangled victim to take several convulsive breaths, and then tightened the noose again.

B) “Cage” or “standing pads” (“Li-jia”) - the device for this execution is a neck block, which was fixed on top of caged bamboo or wooden poles, at a height of about two meters. The convict was placed in a cage, and bricks or tiles were placed under his feet, which were then slowly removed. The executioner removed the bricks, and the man hung with his neck pinched by the block, which began to choke him, this could continue for months until all the supports were removed.

3) Sawing in half. To do this, the body of the criminal was tightly clamped into an unclosed coffin, which was then placed vertically upside down. After this, they sawed from top to bottom with a long two-handed saw. The saw entered the crotch and slowly moved down, tearing muscles and viscera, crushing bones. More often in the paintings you can see horizontal sawing.

4) Lin-Chi凌遲 - “death by a thousand cuts” or"sea pike bites"- the most terrible execution by cutting small pieces from the victim’s body over a long period of time. Such execution followed high treason and parricide, was used from the Middle Ages until 1905, during the Qing dynasty. Linchi was carried out for the purpose of intimidation in in public places with a large crowd of onlookers. In some cases, the victim was pumped with opium to prolong the torture, from which it happened that the victims even began to laugh without feeling unbearable torture, but this rarely happened.

IN early XIX centuries, an average of 15-20 people were sentenced to this execution throughout the country every year, in ancient times - more.

The convict, stripped naked, was tightly tied to a wooden post, the executioners took knives and hacksaws. Then they began to cut off pieces of the criminal’s skin.

The court usually determined in advance how many cut pieces should be confiscated from the criminal; sometimes there were few, sometimes there were a lot:

1,2 - cut off the left and right eyebrows;

3.4 - cut off the meat from the left and right buttocks,

5.6 - cut off the left and right nipples and meat from the breast - was used most often.

7.8 - tear off the meat on the hands and ultimately saw off the hands;

8.9 - then saw off the arms up to the elbows;

11,12 - feet;

13.14 - tear off pieces from the leg up to the knee and then chop off;

15 - stomach with guts being torn out;

16 - neck with throat cut at the end;

17.18 - pulling from arms to shoulders;

19.20 - from toe to groin.

Death, as a rule, occurred in the middle of the execution.

In the Qing era, 36, 72, 120 and 1000, or even more, pieces of flesh were used.
In this case, the weeping covered the victim's body with a fine mesh net. The mesh was pulled tighter, and the executioner's assistant used tongs to grab a small piece that protruded in the cell and pulled it out. After that, another executioner grabbed it with a sharp knife.

As a form of mercy, execution was sometimes carried out on a dead criminal.

About Chinese suicide:

A person driven to despair, wanting to take revenge for an insult or desecration inflicted on him, committed suicide in the house or near the house of the offender.

Suicide for revenge was often associated with superstitions that after death a person, having turned into a spirit/demon, could take revenge on the enemy with greater ease than during life; in this case, poison, starvation or strangulation were preferred.

The soul of the suicide could not ascend to heaven and remained forever in the house of the offender, bringing a curse on the perpetrators.

Most likely it will be: Japanese food, high tech, 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 has gotten to the point that some Japanese schoolchildren believe that atomic bombs the USSR dropped 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 “ 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 described in this material the crimes of Japanese soldiers were recorded by military tribunals, and the literary sources used in its creation are freely available online.

— A short excerpt from Valentin Pikul’s book “Katorga”, it outlines well tragic events 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 were bayoneted Chinese men conscription age, 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. Approximate quantity The Chinese killed as a result of Operation Suk Ching are estimated at 50 thousand.

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 killed at least 100 thousand in Manila and its environs. human lives.

— 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 dissatisfied with how the filmmakers portrayed Japanese pilots 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 documentary film with the title "Hell in Pacific Ocean" After a successful military operation at Pearl Harbor, which carried away great amount human 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. The burning of all prisoners in the camp where the infected were encountered was the most effective means 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 - for crimes committed All participants in the events mentioned above are responsible, and not just the high command, because the soldiers did this not because they were ordered, but because they themselves liked to bring pain and torment. There is an assumption that such incredible cruelty towards the enemy was caused by the interpretation of the military code "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?

We all remember what horrors Hitler and the entire Third Reich committed, but few take into account that the German fascists had sworn allies, the Japanese. And believe me, their executions, torments and tortures were no less humane than the German ones. They mocked people not even for any gain or benefit, but simply for fun...

Cannibalism

This terrible fact is very difficult to believe, but there is a lot of written evidence and evidence about its existence. It turns out that the soldiers who guarded the prisoners often went hungry, there was not enough food for everyone and they were forced to eat the corpses of prisoners. But there are also facts that the military cut off body parts for food not only from the dead, but also from the living.

Experiments on pregnant women

“Unit 731” is especially famous for its terrible abuse. The military was specifically allowed to rape captive women so that they could become pregnant, and then carried out various frauds on them. They were specifically infected with venereal, infectious and other diseases in order to analyze how they would behave female body and the fetal body. Sometimes on early stages women were “cut open” on the operating table without any anesthesia and the premature baby was removed to see how it copes with infections. Naturally, both women and children died...

Brutal torture

There are many known cases where the Japanese tortured prisoners not for the sake of obtaining information, but for the sake of cruel entertainment. In one case, a captured wounded Marine had his genitals cut off and stuffed into the soldier's mouth before he was released. This senseless cruelty of the Japanese shocked their opponents more than once.

Sadistic curiosity

During the war, Japanese military doctors not only carried out sadistic experiments on prisoners, but often did this without any, even pseudoscientific, purpose, but out of pure curiosity. This is exactly what the centrifuge experiments were like. The Japanese were interested in what would happen to the human body if it was rotated for hours in a centrifuge at high speed. Tens and hundreds of prisoners became victims of these experiments: people died from bleeding, and sometimes their bodies were simply torn apart.

Amputations

The Japanese abused not only prisoners of war, but also civilians and even their own citizens suspected of spying. A popular punishment for spying was cutting off some part of the body - most often a leg, fingers or ears. The amputation was carried out without anesthesia, but at the same time they carefully ensured that the punished survived - and suffered for the rest of his days.

Drowning

Immersing an interrogated person in water until he begins to choke is a well-known torture. But the Japanese moved on. They simply poured streams of water into the prisoner's mouth and nostrils, which went straight into his lungs. If the prisoner resisted for a long time, he simply choked - with this method of torture, literally minutes counted.

Fire and Ice

Experiments on freezing people were widely practiced in the Japanese army. The limbs of prisoners were frozen until they were solid, and then skin and muscle were cut from living people without anesthesia to study the effects of cold on tissue. The effects of burns were studied in the same way: people were burned alive with burning torches, skin and muscles on their arms and legs, carefully observing tissue changes.

Radiation

Still in the same notorious unit 731, Chinese prisoners were driven into special cells and subjected to the most powerful x-ray radiation, observing what changes subsequently occurred in their body. Such procedures were repeated several times until the person died.

Buried alive

One of the most cruel punishments for American prisoners of war, rebellion and disobedience meant burial alive. The person was placed upright in a hole and covered with a pile of earth or stones, leaving him to suffocate. The corpses of those punished in such a cruel way were discovered more than once by Allied troops.

Decapitation

Beheading an enemy was a common execution in the Middle Ages. But in Japan this custom survived until the twentieth century and was applied to prisoners during the Second World War. But the most terrible thing was that not all executioners were skilled in their craft. Often the soldier did not complete the blow with his sword, or even hit the executed man on the shoulder with his sword. This only prolonged the torment of the victim, whom the executioner stabbed with a sword until he achieved his goal.

Death in the waves

This type of execution, quite typical for ancient Japan, was also used during World War II. The executed person was tied to a pole dug in the high tide zone. The waves slowly rose until the person began to choke, and finally, after much suffering, drowned completely.

The most painful execution

Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world; it can grow 10-15 centimeters per day. The Japanese have long used this property for ancient and terrible executions. The man was chained with his back to the ground, from which fresh bamboo shoots sprouted. For several days, the plants tore apart the sufferer’s body, dooming him to terrible torment. It would seem that this horror should have remained in history, but no: it is known for certain that the Japanese used this execution for prisoners during the Second World War.

Welded from the inside

Another section of experiments carried out in part 731 was experiments with electricity. Japanese doctors shocked prisoners by attaching electrodes to the head or torso, immediately giving a large voltage or exposing the unfortunate people to a lower voltage for a long time... They say that with such exposure a person had the feeling that he was being fried alive, and this was not far from the truth: some The victims' organs were literally boiled.

Forced labor and death marches

The Japanese prisoner of war camps were no better than Hitler's death camps. Thousands of prisoners who found themselves in Japanese camps worked from dawn to dusk, while, according to stories, they were provided with very little food, sometimes without food for several days. And if slave labor was needed in another part of the country, hungry, exhausted prisoners were driven, sometimes a couple of thousand kilometers, on foot under the scorching sun. Few prisoners managed to survive the Japanese camps.

Prisoners were forced to kill their friends

The Japanese were masters of psychological torture. They often forced prisoners, under threat of death, to beat and even kill their comrades, compatriots, even friends. Regardless of how this psychological torture ended, the will and soul of a person were forever broken.