Date of letter:1992-06-05
Address of author:Pi County, Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province
Date of event:1942-04（lunar calendar）
Location of event:Yiwu City, Zhejiang
Name of author:Wang Huanbin
Name(s) of victim(s):Wang Huanbin and townsmen
Type of atrocity:Biological/Chemical Warfare, Others（BC, OT)
Other details:On April 7th 1942 on the lunar calendar, the Japanese military aircrafts spread plague-infected fleas in my hometown Chongshan village, Yiwu City, Zhejiang. Those infected by the plague were forced into prisoners for human trials in the germ warfare. Some people were celiotomies, while the others’ arms and legs were cut off. More than 1,000 people died of infection. In the name of preventing the plague from spreading, the Japanese burnt nearly two thousand houses, including mine. I support the claim against the Japanese.
Leader Tong Zeng:
How have you been?
You submitted to the National People’s Congress an opinion letter about claiming for civilian compensation from Japan last year. Your righteous act represents the long-suppressed will of the people, serves as a great force to build “four modernizations” (industrial modernization, agricultural modernization, modernization of national defense, science and technology modernization) and objectively complies with domestic and international regulations.
I am from Chongshan, Jiangwan, Yiwu, Zhejiang. My hometown was occupied by the Japanese army on lunar April 7, 1942. The Japanese army used planes to spread flea plague over Chongshan Village as the center. After the outbreak of the flea plague, they took the patients and strong civilians to Linshan Temple, 1km away from the village to quarantine them and secretly conduct human experiments on them for bacterial warfare. Some of the people had their bellies opened and organs taken out and some had their limbs cut off. The flea plague spread by the Japanese army killed over 1,000 people of Yiwubeimen, Tashanxia Village (380 people of Chongshan Village died, including 19 families). Then, the Japanese and puppet army surrounded and burned down nearly 2,000 houses (including over 400 houses of Changshan Village) in the name of preventing the flea plague from spreading. The civilian people hold great hatred towards Japan. Recently after I read the article about your proposal for claiming for civilian compensation against Japan from Press Digest, I told my fellow countrymen and got an active response from them. They requested to sign your petition letter and demand compensation against Japan and tough punishment on Japanese war criminals that have violated the Geneva Agreement and other regulations forbidding bacterial warfare. I will try to win local support to get thousands of local people to sign the petition letter and provide a list of demands for compensation against Japan.
I am from Changshan Village. Before the dawn of November 16, 1942, our village was surrounded by the Japanese army. I escaped from the village, wearing thin clothes and trousers and no shoes. My family’s 6 room house was all burned down. You know, even any beggar needs a bowl and a pair of chopsticks. But I had nothing. I painfully lived alone, away from my hometown for many years. After I entered adulthood, I married my girlfriend who was from Yiwubeimen. Five family members died of the flea plague spread by the Japanese army and 31 houses burned down. My wife lost her mother and suffered in life. We have the same painful memories as millions of other Chinese people. We sincerely ask the Party and government to support our claim for civilian compensation against the Japanese government and to give priority to victims suffering from the Japanese army’s experiment on building bacterial warfare weapons to have their compensation paid by the Japanese government in a specified period.
After the war, some Japanese people have been tampering with the history and war crime of Japan’s aggression against China, which leads both Chinese and Japanese people into the abyss of misery. There is conclusive evidence of the Japanese army’s crime of experimenting on humans for bacterial warfare in my hometown. Last August 11, a group of four Japanese individuals visited my hometown to collect materials of the Japanese army’s bacterial experiment in Chongshan, Jiangwan, Yiwu, Zhejiang, which once again fully confirms the crimes of the Japanese army. The crimes of the invading Japanese army must be exposed to the Japanese people and Chinese victims must be compensated by the Japanese government. Only in this way can the lesson be learned and a reoccurrence be avoided.
Leader Tong Zeng, please answer my following questions in your reply letter:
1．Whether the signer’s personal seal or fingerprint is required? 2．Whether the claimant’s property list needs to be sealed by the local government or notary office apart from the confirmation of a person with some reputation? 3. What organization should I report to or contact regarding claiming for compensation in the future? Looking forward to your reply.
Yours faithfully,
Wang Huanbin
4/6 Warehouse, Water Conservancy Bureau, Pei County, Jiangsu
Postal code: 221300
(I am going back to Chongshan, Jiangwan, Yiwu, Zhejiang next month)
