War responsibility and Japanese civilian victims of Japanese biological warfare in China

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the narrative of Aizawa Yoshi, a former teacher at the Harbin Higher School for Japanese Women during the Manchukuo era (1932-45). In 1940, Yoshi lost twenty-two of her students and colleagues to a typhoid epidemic that spread throughout the city of Harbin. Today, she believes that they were the victims of Japanese biological warfare. However, as a Japanese civilian, she finds it extremely difficult to express her belief in public. How can we hear the voices of civilians victimized at the hands of their own military? This article attempts to answer this question by untangling the complex relationship between Yoshi's narrative and the larger discourse of war responsibility in contemporary Japan.