David Peace - Occupied City

April 12, 1947

Comrade Lt. Gen. Derevyanko finally received a written reply from Willoughby: Despite no clear-cut war crimes interest by the USSR in acts allegedly committed by the Japanese against the Chinese, permission is granted for SCAP-controlled Soviet interrogations of Gen. Ishii and Cols. Kikuchi and Ōta as an amiable gesture toward a friendly government. It should be noted, however, that the permission granted in this instance does not create a precedent for future requests, which shall continue to be assessed on their individual merits .

No doubt now the real waiting will begin while Our Amiable Friends’ in GHQ debrief Ishii and his gang.

May9, 1947

Today was a day of the greatest jubilation for today was Victory Day in the Soviet Union, marking the end of the Great Patriotic War. But has the Great Patriotic War ended? I remember when the tide turned at the Front, how our newspapers blared forth fanfares, and how our evening skies were lit up by ever more extravagant displays of fireworks. And I also remember looking up at that sky, at those fireworks one night — where? Was I still in Moscow? — and, feeling only sorrow, only anger, I heard from somewhere someone whispering, ‘Be careful, this victory is not what you think it is at all, you will have to answer for it and pay the due retribution …’ And then, of course, I silenced myself; my duty, of course, is to rejoice. Rejoice! Rejoice!

June 6, 1947

The clock showed midnight, then one o’clock, two o’clock. Still there was no answer. The calendar showed Monday, then Tuesday, Wednesday. April, then May, now June. Still there was no answer. So days and weeks have passed, but thoughts and memories have not. For external time and internal time never correspond and so they remain unchanged, these thoughts and these memories.And then yesterday the answer finally came; we are to be allowed to interview the criminal Ishii, but only in the presence of the Americans, and only at the criminal Ishii’s residence, and only tomorrow, that is, today.

So an American jeep picked up our own interpreter, our own stenographer and me this morning. Of course, I had not slept, but had spent the entire night preparing for this encounter, not knowing if further interviews would be granted.

We were seated in the back of the jeep, the windows obscured, and driven around the city in various directions for well over two hours until, finally, we arrived at our destination; 77 Wakamatsu-chō, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo.

At the Ishii residence, the atmosphere rather resembled a luncheon party than a criminal interrogation. As well as their own interpreter and stenographer, there were two uniformed officers whom I did not recognize and two men who were quite obviously from Camp Detrick, as well as Lt. Col. McQuail and Mr Waldorf. Ishii’s wife and daughter were also present as well as Ishii’s pet monkey (who, from its friendly disposition towards certain nationalities present, had obviously already met these particular Americans, or else it had been specifically trained to display antagonism only towards citizens of the Soviet Union). And then, of course, there was the General himself.

The criminal Ishii was bedridden and feigning ill health. However, he could not disguise his own inherent arrogance and also his contempt and disdain for the Soviet Union. The man, though, had been well coached by his American friends and so, for example, while admitting that he had authorized and overseen experiments on Chinese and Manchurian captives, Ishii repeatedly denied that any such experiments had been conducted upon Allied or Soviet prisoners.

This diary is not the place to record or repeat the full extent of either my questions or his answers. But, suffice to say, Ishii answered my specific questions only with generalities, denying he could remember, or presently had access to, any specific technical data. To quote him, ‘I cannot give detailed technical data. All the records were destroyed. I never did know many details, and I have forgotten what I knew. I can give you only general results.’

And in an obvious attempt to curtail any further investigation on our part, Ishii was also keen to portray himself as the person who should take full responsibility for Pingfan and N731 –

‘I am responsible for all that went on at Pingfan. I am willing to shoulder all responsibility. Neither my superiors nor my subordinates had anything to do with issuing instructions for experiments. I do not want to see any of my superiors or subordinates get in trouble for what occurred as a result of my instructions.’

However, in regard to his research into plague as a BW agent and the mass production of fleas, Ishii was categorical in his denial, stating that no such work had taken place. Of course, we know this to be an outright lie and it only confirms that an arrangement has already been made with the US in regard to this information.

And so it went on for almost two hours; vague generalities and professions of guilt, followed by categorical denials and outright lies.

However, a second and final interview with the criminal Ishii has been granted and is scheduled to take place in the criminal Ishii’s residence, again in the presence of the Americans, in one week’s time. At the conclusion of my interview today, I asked Ishii if he would agree to hold the second interview at a different location. To this Ishii replied, ‘I prefer to be interviewed at my house because of my health and also because I am afraid to leave my house.’

But at least now I have one full week in which to consider what action I should take at our next and final meeting.

June13, 1947

I doubt I have slept more than one or two hours each night of this past week. My head and my thoughts have been filled with numbers; the numbers of the dead and the numbers of the hurt, the number of my temptations and the number of my sins (all of which I know now to be countless). Repeatedly, I have found myself forsaking the documents, the reports and the transcripts, and returning instead to the Ten Commandments, the thirty steps of the Divine Ladder of Ascent, and the forty days and forty nights Christ spent in the wilderness. How many days and nights have I spent in the wilderness, how far have I fallen from the steps of the Divine Ladder, how many of the Commandments have I broken?

As before, we were picked up and driven around for an hour in an American jeep. Again, as before, at the Ishii residence, the criminal was bedridden. And again, as before, he spoke only in generalities or lies. This was as I had expected.

But the meeting was not entirely pointless for, as I bid him farewell, I handed Ishii a letter. And, for the first time, the man looked frightened and worried. I have no doubt he will show the letter to his American friends. But still, tonight I shall pray he will reply or seek to make contact, if only to be rid of me and the threat of further interrogation.

There is the death and then the mourning, and after the mourning there is the forgetting. That was how it was with our father and our mother; the death, the mourning, and then the forgetting. That is how it should be, how it must be.

But if someone said to me: You should forget your brother now. You must move on. Then I would strike that person down. I would strike that man down!

For his is a death imagined. There was no body. There is no grave. No damp mound of fresh earth on which to fall, to lie, prostrate in the soil with my tears.

Imagine if we could never forget the dead, imagine if we were always mourning, imagine then a world of tears, everything flooded, everyone drowned. That is my world, this city, all flooded, all drowned.

The Year 2000 43rd of April