Wen 丨 is ignorant
Editor 丨An Lan
Shimen Concentration Camp, the largest concentration camp of prisoners of war and labor in North China during the Japanese invasion of China, is located in Shijiazhuang, the capital of today's Hebei Province. As an important town in North China, Shijiazhuang has always been a place where soldiers and families must fight. Therefore, after the Japanese army captured Beijing, in order to more conveniently concentrate the Japanese army and go out to carry out sweeping tasks, the Japanese army began to exercise high-pressure and strengthened military rule over Chinese civilians. At the same time, they built barracks in the east, west, south, north and middle of Shijiazhuang, including the "Shimen Concentration Camp" built in Shijiazhuang.
In this dark place, which was regarded as a "purgatory on earth" by the people imprisoned in it, every day they bid farewell to countless unknown souls day after day, including heroic and indomitable resistance fighters and ordinary people who had no vendetta against the Japanese army. They may have "made mistakes" because they disobeyed the orders of the Japanese army; some were indiscriminately captured here by the puppet army.
Until the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, more than 20,000 people were frozen to death, starved to death, thirsty, or tortured to death by the Japanese army in the dark dungeon of the Shimen concentration camp, and the number of people could not help but sigh deeply for the end of those innocent compatriots when they resented the inhuman atrocities of the Japanese army.
What kind of dark past has this "mass burial post of the living" had? Perhaps the next survivors will give us the truest answer.
"Purgatory on Earth" Shimen Concentration Camp
"I've been here for 4 or 5 months, and by the roughest count, four or five hundred people have died. After [the man] died, a mat was tied up, and the two brothers tied him up with straw ropes... Two people carry, one bar and one wear, at least 5 or 6 people die at a time. Carry it outside and bury it. When they were carried away, two Japanese were in charge. ”
Recalling the unbearable years in the Shimen concentration camp, Yuan Suchen, a former cadre of the Eighth Route Army who was nearly old, is still terrified. In 1942, Yuan Suchen was unfortunately arrested by the Japanese army because of mistakes in intelligence work. He was later transferred by the Japanese to the Ishimon concentration camp and sent to Nagano, Japan, a few months later as a laborer. In 1945, the Japanese army announced its unconditional surrender, and Yuan Suchen also returned to his homeland from Japan. In order to let future generations know about this painful experience and take it as a warning, the elderly Yuan Suchen decided to write a memoir, which is more than 100,000 words. He hoped that through this memoir, the Chinese people would always remember the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese army in the war of aggression against China.
From Yuan Suchen's short recollections, it is not difficult to imagine the scene in the Shimen concentration camp - the filth everywhere, the stench that pervades, the weak moans that come and go, and the countless faces curled up together with a sallow face.
Prisoners of war held in the Shimen concentration camp
People die every day, but every day a new face appears in the dungeon. Spring and winter come, summer is hot and autumn is cool, death seems to be the norm in this dark place, and everyone locked up here cannot predict how long they will have to struggle.
"When I looked, it was more than a meter deep, and the whole house was white, curved like a ox martingale, and in the middle, there was a slit... I don't know what it's for. The next day, I met a Kuomintang prisoner of war in The Middle Street Mountain (Campaign), who came earlier than me. I asked him, what is that white man doing? He said that this was the time when the enemy had not organized labor in the past, and he wanted to maim people... He was mutilated in the arm, anesthetic, and cast. A few months later, this plaster cast cut a slit, took it down, and the joint became dead, no longer able to fight, no longer able to use a gun... I watched it twice, and I was creepy and my hair stubble straightened up. I think it's too cruel to turn good people into disabled people alive!"
In his opinion, in order to prevent the prisoners in the dungeon from rebelling, this group of mad Japanese people did not hesitate to "transform" a normal person with sound limbs into a disabled person for life. Even though such a scene had been mentioned again for many years, Wu Xintian still couldn't help but take a breath of cool air.
According to the recollections of Uemura Yoshirai, a Japanese soldier who worked in the concentration camp, in the concentration camp, daily punishments such as beatings and torture are still the "most common commonplace". Sometimes, the Japanese army would even release fierce wolf dogs directly out to bite prisoners of war. The prisoners of war, who had suffered so much from prison, had the physical strength to dodge the oncoming abyss mouth, and could only wait to be torn to pieces by the wolfhounds and finally turned into their "belly meal".
Tian Runsheng: "Forty or fifty people a day, these people who died were originally in winter, and in winter, (the day) was cold, and (rice) could not be eaten, and even the frostbite was hungry and sick (and died)." ”
"Beiping Special Susheng Brigade", which was another name for the prisoners of war held by the Japanese army invading China at that time. In the early days of the Shimen camp, most of the initial prisoners of war held here were captured officers and men of the Resolute Anti-Japanese Chinese 29th Army. Later, with the continuous expansion of the scale of the Japanese invasion of China, the increasing number of prisoners of war was no longer limited to fighters who resisted the Japanese army, and some innocent people were also detained here. According to later verification by relevant experts, in the seven years from 1938 to 1945, more than 50,000 prisoners of war were held in this concentration camp.
Since then, the largest concentration camp in North China has been born, and the Shimen concentration camp has truly become a "purgatory on earth".
Jiang Huamin, a native of Guangzong, Hebei Province, served as the head of the anti-Japanese district of Guangzong County, Hebei Province, and at the end of 1943, Jiang Huamin was imprisoned by the Japanese army for betrayal by traitors, and was transferred to a concentration camp set up in Shijiazhuang more than 20 days later.
"I was captured in January 1944, and after I was captured, [the enemy] took seven of us to the Shijiazhuang Labor Training Center. At the labor training center, entering the first gate, [the Japanese] stripped us naked, went naked to a cold house, jumped into the cold water tank to take a bath... Shivering with cold. Finally sprayed, the body is blistering. It was the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month (1943), which was my birthday. That birthday, (I' will never forget. ”
Although many years have passed, the old man still remembers his arrest at that time.
These captured PRISONERS were first examined in great detail and then assigned to different units for different tasks. Because the environment is simple, there is not even the most ordinary grass mat, and often seven or eight people are next to each other. In peacetime, the eating, drinking, and sleeping of the prisoners of war were almost all settled in this dungeon, resulting in perennial dampness and blockage of the air. And if it is changed in summer and winter, the situation is even more unbearable. Driven by sweltering summer temperatures, the airtight dungeon is filled with disgusting smells of excrement and the stench of wound putrefaction. In winter, the cold temperatures turn the entire dungeon into an ice cellar.
As for eating and drinking, the Japanese originally planned to directly starve the prisoners of war directly, but then the prisoners of war launched a riot, and the Japanese army, who was unable to do so, finally had to reluctantly "agree" to provide meals for the prisoners of war. Don't think that the Japanese army was really kind enough to improve the living conditions of the prisoners of war, except for the "porridge" with only a few grains of rice, it was just moldy steamed buns and a pitiful amount of pickles. However, in such a terrible environment, the prisoners of war just ate a mouthful of food, and their stomachs would be smoked by the suffocating stench of the air, and it would be difficult to swallow. Later, some elderly and sick people simply chose to go on hunger strike in order to die quickly. Instead of surviving in this dungeon day and night, it is better to go on hunger strike and starve to death.
Prisoners of war were placed in different rooms, and the Japanese army stipulated that they could only move in their own rooms and within a designated area, and if anyone violated the rules, he would be caught by the Japanese soldiers and beaten severely. In peacetime, all PRISONERs of war served in the battlefield. Usually, prisoners of war were placed in places such as grain farms and barracks to perform strenuous labor. Of course, the inhuman Japanese army would not just honestly stand on the side and guard the prisoners of war to "supervise the work". Even if they obeyed the orders of the Japanese army in a step-by-step manner, in some special cases, the prisoners of war were still tortured and "greeted" by the Japanese army. The lives of these prisoners of war seemed even more insignificant than those of ants in front of the Bayonets of the Japanese Army, and it seemed that they never needed a reason to kill them.
Wu Xintian: "At the end of 1940, [I] was taken by the enemy to the Shijiazhuang concentration camp, where I stayed for nearly three months. The Shijiazhuang concentration camp is a place of misery, where our comrades are, seven or eight people (die) every day, and our victims are naked and without clothes... Throw it at the rocky hill, every day. Because it was December, the winter was cold, and the bodies were very white, miserable and white. ”
This horror scene, which still sounds hair-raising today, was a "daily routine" that prisoners of war experienced every day in the Shimen concentration camp for decades.
If the dungeon of the Shimen concentration camp just described is a "purgatory on earth", then the "third ward" below is simply a "living grave" for prisoners of war.
The "Third Ward" that no one survived
Everyone who is locked up in the Shimen concentration camp knows a truth, that is, if someone is sent to the third ward, they are doomed to die. These people who were carried out to the third ward were mostly seriously ill patients who were only hanging in one breath, and under the double torture of long-term hunger in the dungeon and their own illness, they had completely become a "living skeleton" with no precarious life. Their dry, sallow faces were lifeless, no one would treat them, all they could do was lie on their beds, waiting for death's verdict with their confused yellow eyes open.
Dysentery, inflammation caused by suppuration of wounds, nausea and diarrhea... Disease brutally takes the lives of one innocent person after another, and hundreds of lives are brought to an end here every day. And those who still have breath can't live in peace, they suffer greatly all the time, as if all this proves the truth—
There is no hope of survival, and they have no choice but to die.
How long does it take to turn a healthy, strong person into a lifeless corpse? In the Shimen concentration camp, you can tell you the answer directly, in just three or four weeks, even the most powerful person will be completely turned into a disease-ridden waste after repeated inhuman tortures such as starvation, severe beatings, and heavy labor.
In this regard, Wang Daoren, one of the survivors who survived the Shimen concentration camp, deeply realized that he was also one of them in the dim and dull "Third Ward" decades ago.
What is it like for a vigorous young man to turn into a sallow-faced bone frame, and finally swallow with unwilling tears on his side?
Wang Daoren recalled the young man who was tortured to death by the Japanese army alive, and his heart was still so painful that he couldn't help but cry several times.
Let's rewind the time back to the drowsy "third ward."
One day, Wang Daoren leaned on the peeling wall as usual and talked to his acquaintance, when suddenly there were footsteps outside the door, and he immediately sat up alertly and looked straight out the door. Seeing two captives carrying a stretcher in, he soon understood that there were new patients being sent out of the dungeon. Lying on the stretcher was a young man named Wang Yousan, but at this time Wang Daoren was a little worried about this new friend. Because the twenty or so beds in the whole room were already crowded with people, some of them unclothed, some of them still wearing a thin layer of clothing, and they were lying on the bed full of blood. Not to mention the ground, despite the fact that it was full of dust and the excrement of the sick people, there was not even a place to put a foot in the ground.
After thinking about it for half a day, Wang Daoren decided to move the patient on the bed next to him, which barely made room for Wang Yousan to make a small open space.
Looking at the tall, skinny young man next to him, Wang Daoren decided to say hello to the young brother who had just arrived first, to offset the panic he felt when he first arrived.
Being sent to such a disgraceful place is not good for anyone to change. He had already been enslaved and abused by the Japanese army in the dungeon, and as a result, he became ill and was thrown aside like a burden by the Japanese Kou, so how could this be endured?
"Boy, you take care of it first, and when you're well, we'll live together!"
The young man named Wang Yousan turned his head without a word, but the tears that spilled from the corners of his eyes had proved that he had listened to the old man's advice in front of him.
Of course, Wang Daoren knew that there was no point in saying such a thing, but he didn't want to watch this young life gradually die in a desperate atmosphere, he wanted this child to get better sooner, at least not to wait for death here and everyone else.
The next morning, the Japanese came to the "Third Ward" to inspect, as usual, looking around the room, they came here for nothing else, just to see if anyone was "almost".
A leading Japanese soldier with a long stick first poked Wang Yousan, who was resting, and because the stick poked Wang Yousan's wound that had not yet healed, the tearing pain generated by the wound made Wang Yousan subconsciously sit up.
Xu was dissatisfied because he had been poked in the wound, and Wang Yousan glared at the Japanese army in front of him, opening his mouth to say "Down with Japanese imperialism." This completely annoyed the Japanese.
The Japanese slammed directly into Wang Yousan's head, and the huge momentum brought by the stick blow made Wang Yousan's head fall directly to the bed, and the blood on his head gushed out like a fountain in a flash.
Wang Daoren, who had returned from work, came to the "Third Ward" to see Wang Yousan as usual as before, but was surprised to find that he had fallen into a coma, and Wang Daoren hurriedly touched Wang Yousan's hand, which was also cold and cold. Wang Daoren quickly found a water source and carefully sent it to Wang Yousan's blood-soaked lips, and after a long time, Wang Yousan became confused and conscious. He recognized that the person who was feeding himself water was Wang Daoren, but he could only open his mouth weakly, grasp Wang Daoren's hand tightly, and a few chaotic tears quietly dripped from the corners of his eyes.
Wang Daoren looked at Wang Yousan, who was tortured to the point of disfigurement in front of him, and choked up in his throat, and a moment of despair spread in his heart. At this moment he could do nothing but comfort him uselessly.
After a brief consolation, Wang Daoren turned his head with tears in his eyes and walked out of the third ward. Who knew that after this meeting, Wang Daoren never saw Wang Yousan again.
When Wang Daoren, who was concerned about Wang Yousan's illness, rushed to the third ward with wind and fire, Wang Yousan, who was still lying here yesterday, had long disappeared, and was replaced by a new face. His heart sank, as if he had anticipated something.
It was only an overnight whisker, and a living life came to an abrupt end.
However, he was obviously only 20 years old! 20 years old, what a wonderful age for a person! But Wang Yousan had not yet had time to feel this once in a lifetime beauty, and he left this world!
"Corpse pullers" in concentration camps
"The three of us went to pull (the corpse) that day, and I was the first one, and he (a living man) pulled me by the arm. I guess it's a live one, do you pull or don't pull? Pull it! There was also a rotting corpse in the house, and it stinked so badly... I laid the stinking corpse on top of [the living man], and the body was pulled out, and when it was pulled out, I sent him out. ”
Zhao Ju, who used to work as a corpse puller in the Shimen concentration camp, recalled that at that time, his errand in the concentration camp was to pull the corpse puller who was responsible for transporting the corpses of prisoners of war. Every day, hundreds of bodies were pulled out of the camps. In the gray and dull morgue, countless rats walked through the mountains of corpses. They feed on corpses all year round, and they are not afraid at all when they see people coming, and they still eat the corpses of those white flowers. Some of the corpses were chewed by rats without toes, and some were eaten beyond recognition, which was unbearable to see from a distance. Of course, in addition to the corpses in the morgue, they also spared the living people in the third ward. These patients who are dying of disease have become the "big meal on the plate" of the rats, and even some people will be directly bitten by the rats.
So, with so many corpses in the camps every day, did the Japanese have to let Chinese carry the bodies? Although the Japanese never blink when they kill people, they hate disposing of corpses. Naturally, this dirty work fell on the prisoners of war.
Every day, when the morning sun had not yet fully illuminated the earth, Zhao Ju would push a flatbed truck with several other people to the concentration camp to carry the body. At the beginning, the Japanese also had a similar coffin for these prisoners of war, who knew that later the Japanese thought about it and felt troublesome, so they simply let Zhao Ju and these few body pullers take a flatbed truck to carry the body. This saves costs and disposes of the bodies.
Most of these breathless corpses were so thin that they were only skinny and bone-covered, so Zhao Ju could pull 30 or so corpses with a flatbed truck at a time, and then they would send these corpses to the "mass grave" located in the south of the concentration camp to be buried. Later, as the number of corpses continued to increase, the hands and feet of some corpses would be exposed, and it would become the "night snack" of wild dogs at night.
More than sixty years have passed in a flash, and today, the Chinese nation has once again stood up its indomitable backbone in the East, proving to the world that China is no longer the weak and incompetent "sick man of East Asia" in the past. The tragic and dark history of humiliation has left us, and the departed compatriots have finally been able to rest in peace. But it is precisely because of the past that we have had an unforgettable past that we must understand the hard-won nature of peace.
The 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wesser once said: "To forget the Holocaust is to be a second massacre." ”
Today, the former Shimen concentration camp has been turned into Ping'an Park. I wonder if the couples who walk leisurely in the park, the children who play by the amusement facilities, and the elderly who gossip by the lakeside ever expected that just a few decades ago, it was in this land that there was a gray and dark period called "Shimen Concentration Camp"? When people today see the monument standing in the park again, will they sigh in anger at the compatriots who died in vain?