Editing Harbin (section)

===Japanese invasion period===
{{See also|Defense of Harbin|Unit 731}}
[[File:Unit 731 - Complex.jpg|thumb|left|Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army's covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit (Unit 731)]]

Japan invaded [[Manchuria]] outright after the [[Mukden Incident]] in September 1931. After the Japanese captured [[Qiqihar]] in the [[Jiangqiao Campaign]], the [[4th Mixed Brigade (Imperial Japanese Army)|Japanese 4th Mixed Brigade]] moved toward Harbin, closing in from the west and south. Bombing and strafing by Japanese aircraft forced the Chinese army to retreat from Harbin. Within a few hours, the Japanese occupation of Harbin was complete.<ref>Matsuzaka, ''The Making of Japanese Manchuria'', 1904–1932.</ref>

With the establishment of the [[puppet state]] of [[Manchukuo]], the so-called "[[pacification of Manchukuo]]" began, as volunteer armies continued to fight the Japanese. Harbin became a major operations base for the infamous medical experimenters of [[Unit 731]], who killed people of all ages and ethnicities. All these units were known collectively as the ''Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army''.<ref>Yuki Tanaka, ''Hidden Horrors'', 1996, p. 136.</ref> The main facility of the Unit 731 was built in 1935 at [[Pingfang District]], approximately {{convert|24|km|mi|abbr=on}} south of Harbin urban area at that time.<ref name="SHK1">{{cite book| last=Harris|first=Sheldon H.| title=Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932–45 and the American Cover-Up| year=1994| publisher=Routledge |location=California State University, Northridge |isbn=0-415-93214-9| pages=26–33|quote=Page 26: Zhong Ma Prison Camp's creation; Page 33: Pingfang site's creation.}}</ref>
Between 3,000 and 12,000 citizens, including men, women, and children,<ref name="dcr">David C. Rapoport. "Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse". In James M. Ludes, Henry Sokolski (eds.), ''Twenty-First Century Weapons Proliferation: Are We Ready?'' Routledge, 2001. pp. 19, 29.</ref><ref>[[Khabarovsk War Crime Trials]]. ''Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Biological Weapons'', Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950. p. 117.</ref>—from which around 600 every year were provided by the ''[[Kempeitai]]''<ref>Yuki Tanaka, ''Hidden Horrors'', Westviewpress, 1996, p. 138.</ref>—died during the human experimentation conducted by Unit 731 at the camp based in [[Pingfang]] alone, which does not include victims from other medical experimentation sites.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/user/tsuchiya/gyoseki/presentation/IAB8.html|title=[IAB8] Imperial Japanese Medical Atrocities|access-date=27 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304043000/http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/user/tsuchiya/gyoseki/presentation/IAB8.html|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Almost 70 percent of the victims who died in the [[Pingfang]] camp were [[Chinese people|Chinese]], including both civilian and military.<ref>{{cite web |script-title=ja:旧日本軍の７３１部隊（細菌部隊）人体実験に朝鮮人 日本の公文書で初確認 |trans-title=AII The War Crime "Unit 731" and Chinese, Korean Civilian. ci|url=http://www1.korea-np.co.jp/sinboj/sinboj2002/8/0826/81.htm|website=Korea-np.co.jp|publisher=조선신보|language=ja|access-date=15 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150813034434/http://www1.korea-np.co.jp/sinboj/sinboj2002/8/0826/81.htm|archive-date=13 August 2015}}</ref> Close to 30 percent of the victims were Russian.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.x-libri.ru/elib/morim000/00000036.htm|trans-title=Seiichi Morimura, The Devil's Gluttony|script-title=ru:Моримура Сэйити Кухня Дьявола-доставка В Живом Виде По Первому Требованию|year=1981|language=ru|access-date=15 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140906073729/http://www.x-libri.ru/elib/morim000/00000036.htm|archive-date=6 September 2014}}</ref> The Russian Fascist Party had the task of capturing "unreliable" Russians living in Harbin to hand over to Unit 731 to serve as the unwilling subjects of the gruesome experiments.<ref>Bisher, Jamie ''White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian'', London: Routledge, 2005 p.305.</ref>

Some others were [[Southeast Asians]] and [[Pacific Islanders]] from the colonies of the [[Empire of Japan]], and a small number of the [[prisoners of war]] from the [[Allies of World War II]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~tamura/731butai.htm |trans-title=The devil unit, Unit 731 |script-title=ja:７３１部隊について|language=ja|access-date=15 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100923171112/http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~tamura/731butai.htm|archive-date=23 September 2010}}</ref> (although many more Allied POWs were victims of Unit 731 at other sites). Prisoners of war were subjected to [[vivisection]] without anesthesia, after being infected with various diseases.<ref name="dissect">{{cite news |title=Dissect them alive: order not to be disobeyed |author=Richard Lloyd Parry |newspaper=Times Online |date=25 February 2007 |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece |location=London |access-date=14 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070228095300/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece |archive-date=28 February 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects. Unit 731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644 and Unit 100 among others) were involved in research, development, and experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both civilian and military) throughout World War II. Human targets were also used to test [[grenades]] positioned at various distances and in different positions. [[Flame throwers]] were tested on humans. Humans were tied to stakes and used as targets to test [[germ warfare|germ-releasing bombs]], [[chemical weapons]], and explosive [[bomb]]s.<ref>Monchinski, Tony (2008). ''Critical Pedagogy and the Everyday Classroom''. Volumen 3 de Explorations of Educational Purpose. Springer, p. 57. {{ISBN|1-4020-8462-5}}.</ref><ref>Neuman, William Lawrence (2008). ''Understanding Research''. Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, p. 65. {{ISBN|0-205-47153-6}}.</ref>

Twelve Unit 731 members were found guilty in the [[Khabarovsk War Crime Trials]] but later repatriated. Others received secret immunity by the [[Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers]], [[Douglas MacArthur]], before the [[Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal]] in exchange for their [[biological warfare]] work in the [[Cold War]] for the American Forces.<ref name="Gold109">Hal Gold, ''Unit 731 Testimony'', 2003, p. 109.</ref>

[[File:Three different nationalities on Kitaiskaia Street.JPG|thumb|Three different nationalities – Chinese, Japanese and Russian – on Kitaiskaia Street]]
Chinese revolutionaries including [[Zhao Shangzhi]], [[Yang Jingyu]], [[Li Zhaolin]], [[Zhao Yiman]] continued to struggle against the Japanese in Harbin and its administrative area, commanding the main anti-Japanese guerrilla army-[[Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army]]—which was originally organized by the Manchurian branch of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP). The army was supported by the [[Comintern]] after the CCP Manchurian Provincial Committee was dissolved in 1936.

[[File:Russian fascists at Harbin 1934.jpg|thumb|left|Anti–communist [[Russian Fascist Party]] [[Blackshirts]], inspired by [[Italian Fascism]], at [[Harbin Railway Station]], 1934, waiting for arrival of their leader [[Konstantin Rodzaevsky]]]]
Under the Manchukuo régime and Japanese occupation, Harbin Russians had a difficult time. In 1935, the Soviet Union sold the Chinese Eastern Railway (KVZhD) to the Japanese, and many Russian emigres left Harbin (48,133 of them were arrested during the Soviet [[Great Purge]] between 1936 and 1938 as "Japanese spies"<ref>These statistics, based on research work by A. B. Roginsky and O. A. Gorlanov of Memorial's Research and Information Centre, were provided to the author in May 2002.</ref>).<ref name="эхо">{{cite book |script-title=ru:Эхо планеты № 42 |trans-title=Echo of the Planet No.42|publisher=ИТАР-ТАСС (Russian News Agency "TASS")|page=30|language=ru}}</ref> Most departing Russians returned to the Soviet Union, but a substantial number moved south to Shanghai or emigrated to the United States and Australia. By the end of the 1930s, the Russian population of Harbin had dropped to around 30,000.<ref name="Clausen"/>

Many of Harbin's Jews (13,000 in 1929) fled after the Japanese occupation as the Japanese associated closely with militant anti-Soviet [[Russian Fascist Party|Russian Fascists]], whose ideology of anti-Bolshevism and nationalism was laced with virulent anti-Semitism.<ref name="RFP">Stephan, John J. 1978. The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile 192545. London: Hamish Hamilton.</ref> The Kwantung Army-sponsored and financed the Russian Fascist Party, which after 1932 started to play an over-sized role in the Harbin's Russian community as its thugs began to harass and sometimes kill those opposed to it. Most Jews left for [[Shanghai]], [[Tianjin]], and the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Huang|title=Shanghai Jews as seen by Chinese Jewish People in Shanghai for 138 years|url=http://www.dangoor.com/71page18.html|website=The Scribe|access-date=15 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140823074407/http://www.dangoor.com/71page18.html|archive-date=23 August 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> In the late 1930s, some German Jews fleeing the Nazis moved to Harbin. Japanese officials later facilitated Jewish emigration to several cities in western Japan, notably [[Kobe]], which came to have Japan's largest synagogue.