China Wants WWII Death Camp Made UNESCO Site

China wants to turn the ruins of a camp where the Japanese Army conducted grisly human experiments as part of its germ warfare program into a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a newspaper said. The country's Shenghuobao daily said Sunday the efforts focused on what is left of the infamous Unit 731 camp in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, where an estimated 10,000 Chinese, Korean and Russian POWs were slaughtered.

Harbin City in 2000 moved out about 120 families and 11 businesses from the ruins and has excavated additional evidence of war crimes in the area. Heilongjiang Province plans to triple the size of its Unit 731 memorial and turn it into a park to be registered as a World Heritage Site, the head of the memorial site said.

Unit 731 conducted brutal human experiments including vivisection on Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians, Russians and others captured during World War II.