A photo album picturing Japanese prisoners of war who were held
in northeast China's Fushun Prison for War Criminals in the 1950's,
has surfaced in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province.
The album contains well-preserved photographs of 150
high-ranking war criminals, including Takebe Robuzo, who served in
the general affairs department of the state council of the puppet
Manchuria government in northeast China between 1940 and 1945.
Below each photo is an assessment of their performance in prison
which ranged from "excellent, good, bad to extremely bad."
The album was acquired by 35-year-old Zhan Hongge, a well known
Chinese collector, who said the album was likely made around 1952
by prison staff.
Hou Guihua, curator of the gallery for Fushun Prison for War
Criminals, said the album is a rare and historically important
find.
Following China's victory in the war of resistance against
Japanese aggression China held some 1,000 Japanese war criminals,
who were responsible for 30 massacres and killing more than 900,000
Chinese.
More than 982 Japanese prisoners of war and the last Chinese
emperor Puyi were jailed in the Fushun Prison for War Criminals
from 1950 to 1964.
By 1964, all the Japanese criminals had been sent back to Japan
after serving sentences of various lengths in Fushun. Many reformed
criminals became peace activists and opponents of militarist forces
in Japan.
(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2007)