Documentary Screening on Japan’s Unit 731 and Biological Warfare

Brookdale’s Asia Society, in partnership with the New Jersey Alliance for Learning and Preserving the History of World War II in Asia (NJ-ALPHA), presented a film screening of the documentary 731 – How America Exploited Japan’s Biological Weapons Crimes on April 23. A question and answer session with filmmaker Paul Johnson followed the screening.

“You are about to see one of the strangest and darkest tales in modern history,” Johnson told the audience before the screening. He is an award-winning broadcast journalist and documentary film director. The documentary looks at the atrocities committed by the Japanese Military Unit 731 which included sex slavery, massive use of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, slave labor, brutal treatment and slaughter of prisoners of war and the Nanking Massacre.

Don Tow, president of NJ-ALPHA, explained the atrocities inflicted by the Japanese military on the Chinese and others, including American Prisoners of War, during World War II is a part of history that is rarely taught in American high schools. It is part of NJ-ALPHA’s mission to educate the public about the events so they are not repeated again.

After the war, the American government did not prosecute the leaders of Unit 731 in exchange for the data they got from their human experimentation. “This documentary holds the United States government accountable for what happened,” said Johnson.

Photo Caption:

Linda Wang, professor in the math department and Asia Society club advisor, with Don Tow, president of NJ-ALPHA.