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Japan did not support the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, and cruel jailers were free to do whatever they wanted to the prisoners: starve them, torture them and abuse them, turning people into emaciated half-corpses
When, after the surrender of Japan in September 1945, Allied troops began to release Japanese prisoners of war concentration camps, a terrifying sight met their eyes.
The Japanese, who did not support the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, mocked captured soldiers, turning them into living skeletons covered in leather.
The exhausted prisoners were constantly tortured and abused by the Japanese.
The inhabitants of the camps pronounced with horror the names of the guards, who were famous for their special sadism. Some of them were subsequently arrested and executed as war criminals.
Prisoners in Japanese camps they were fed extremely poorly, they were constantly hungry, most of those who survived by the time of liberation were in an extreme state of exhaustion.
Tens of thousands of starving prisoners of war were constantly subjected to abuse and torture. The picture shows torture devices discovered in one of the prisoner of war camps by the Allied troops who liberated the camp.
The tortures were numerous and inventive. For example, “water torture” was very popular: guards first poured a large volume of water into the prisoner’s stomach through a hose, and then jumped on his swollen belly.
Some guards became especially famous for their sadism. The picture shows Lieutenant Usuki, known among the prisoners as the “Black Prince.”
He was an overseer on the construction of the railway, which prisoners of war called “the road of death.” Usuki beat people for the slightest offense or even without any guilt. And when one of the prisoners decided to escape, Usuki personally cut off his head in front of the other prisoners.
Another brutal overseer, a Korean nicknamed “Mad Half-Breed,” also became famous for his brutal beatings.
He literally beat people to death. He was subsequently arrested and executed as a war criminal.
Many British prisoners of war had their legs amputated while in captivity, both due to brutal torture and due to numerous inflammations caused by wet conditions. warm climate Any wound could become, and in the absence of adequate medical care the inflammation quickly developed into gangrene.
In the photo - large group amputee prisoners after liberation from the camp.
By the time of liberation, many prisoners literally turned into living skeletons and could no longer stand up on their own.
Horrifying photographs were taken by officers of the Allied forces liberating the death camps: they were supposed to become evidence of Japanese war crimes during World War II.
During the war, more than 140 thousand Allied soldiers were captured by the Japanese, including representatives from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, India and the United States.
The Japanese used prison labor to build highways, railways, airfields, for work in mines and factories. Working conditions were unbearable, and the amount of food was minimal.
The “road of death”, a railway line built on the territory of modern Burma, enjoyed especially terrible fame.
More than 60 thousand Allied prisoners of war were involved in its construction, about 12 thousand of them died during construction from hunger, disease and abuse.
The Japanese guards abused the prisoners as best they could.
About 36,000 prisoners of war were transported to central Japan, where they worked in mines, shipyards, and munitions factories.
The prisoners ended up in the camp in the clothes in which they were captured by Japanese troops. They were not given any other things: only sometimes, in some camps, they received work clothes, which were worn only while working.
The rest of the time the prisoners wore their own things. Therefore, by the time of liberation, most prisoners of war remained in complete rags.
Japan is a very developed country, but its people are known to us for their oddities that only the Japanese themselves can understand. Many oddities are associated with the traditions of this people, as evidenced by Interesting Facts about ancient Japan, which are waiting for you further.
For more than two and a half centuries, Japan was a closed country.
In 1600, after a long period of feudal fragmentation and civil wars, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder and first head of the shogunate in Edo, came to power in Japan. By 1603, he finally completed the process of unifying Japan and began to rule with an iron fist. Ieyasu, like his predecessor, supported trade with other countries, but was very suspicious of foreigners. This led to the fact that in 1624 trade with Spain was completely prohibited. And in 1635, a decree was issued banning the Japanese from leaving the country and banning those who had already left to return. Since 1636, foreigners (Portuguese, later Dutch) could only stay on the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor.
The Japanese were short because they didn't eat meat.
From VI to XIX century average height Japanese men were only 155 cm. This is due to the fact that it was in the 6th century that the Chinese “neighborly” shared the philosophy of Buddhism with the Japanese. It is not clear why, but the new worldview appealed to the ruling circles of Japanese society. Vegetarianism began to be considered a path to the salvation of the soul and better reincarnation. Meat was completely excluded from the Japanese diet and the result was not long in coming: from the 6th to the 19th centuries, the average height of the Japanese decreased by 10 cm.
Trade in “Night Gold” was widespread in ancient Japan.
Night gold is a phraseological unit that denotes a product of human activity, his feces, used as a valuable and balanced fertilizer. In Japan, this practice was used quite widely. Moreover, the waste of rich people was sold for more high price, because their diet was plentiful and varied, so more nutrients remained in the resulting “product”. Various historical documents dating back to the 9th century detail procedures for toilet waste.
Pornography has always flourished in Japan.
Sexual themes in Japanese art arose many centuries ago and go back to ancient Japanese myths, among which the most famous is the myth of the emergence Japanese islands as a result of the sexual relationship between the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami. There is no hint of a disapproving attitude towards sex in the ancient monuments. “This frankness in the story about sex and literary materials,” writes Japanese cultural anthropologist Tosinao Yoneyama, “has been preserved to this day... In Japanese culture there was no consciousness regarding sex original sin, as was the case in Christian cultures."
Fishermen in ancient Japan used domesticated cormorants.
It all happened something like this: at night, fishermen went out to sea in a boat and lit torches to attract fish. Next, about a dozen cormorants were released, which were tied to the boat with a long rope. At the same time, the neck of each bird was slightly intercepted by a flexible collar so that it could not swallow the caught fish. As soon as the cormorants had full crops, the fishermen pulled the birds onto the boat. For their work, each bird received a reward in the form of a small fish.
In ancient Japan there was special shape marriage - tsumadoi.
A full-fledged small family - in the form of living together - was not a typical form of marriage in Ancient Japan. The basis family relations constituted a special Japanese marriage - tsumadoi, in which the husband freely visited his wife, maintaining, in fact, separate residence from her. For the bulk of the population, marriage took place upon reaching adulthood: at 15 for a boy and at 13 for a girl. Marriage presupposed the consent of numerous relatives, including grandparents on the wife’s side. Tsumadoi marriage did not imply monogamy, and a man was not forbidden to have several wives, as well as concubines. However, a free relationship with their wives, leaving them without a reason to marry a new wife, was not allowed by law.
There were and still are quite a lot of Christians in Japan.
Christianity appeared in Japan in the mid-16th century. The first missionary to preach the Gospel to the Japanese was the Basque Jesuit Francis Xavier. But the missionary work did not last long. Soon the shoguns began to see Christianity (as the faith of foreigners) as a threat. In 1587, the unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned the presence of missionaries in the country and began oppressing believers. To justify his actions, he pointed out that some Japanese converts had desecrated and destroyed Buddhist and Shinto shrines. The repressive policy was continued by Hideyoshi's political successor, Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1612, he banned the practice of Christianity in his domains, and in 1614 he extended this ban to all of Japan. During the Tokugawa era, about 3,000 Japanese Christians were martyred, while the rest suffered imprisonment or exile. Tokugawa policy obliged everything Japanese families register with your local Buddhist temple and receive evidence that they are not Christians.
Japanese prostitutes were divided into several ranks.
In addition to the well-known geishas, who by and large were simply masters of ceremonies, there were also courtesans in Japan, who in turn were divided into several classes depending on cost: tayu (the most expensive), koshi, tsubone, santya and the cheapest - street girls, bath attendants, servants, etc. The following agreement existed unspoken: once you had chosen a girl, you had to stick with her, “settle down.” Therefore, men often kept their own courtesans. Girls of Tayu rank cost 58 momme (about 3,000 rubles) at a time, and this does not count the mandatory 18 momme for servants - another 1,000 rubles. Prostitutes of the lowest rank cost approximately 1 momme (about 50 rubles). In addition to direct payment for services, there were also associated expenses - food, drink, tips for many servants, all this could reach up to 150 momme (8000 rubles) per evening. Thus, a man supporting a courtesan could easily shell out about 29 kemme (about 580,000 rubles) in a year.
The Japanese often committed couple suicides out of unhappy love.
After the “reorganization” of prostitution in 1617, all non-family intimate life of the Japanese was moved to separate quarters like the “red light district”, where girls lived and worked. The girls could not leave the quarter unless wealthy clients bought them as wives. It was very expensive and more often than not it happened that lovers simply could not afford to be together. Despair drove such couples to “shinju” - couple suicides. The Japanese did not see anything wrong with this, because they had long revered rebirth and were completely confident that in the next life they would definitely be together.
Torture and executions in Japan for a long time were prescribed by law.
To begin with, it should be said that in the Japanese legal system of the Tokugawa era there was no presumption of innocence. Every person who went to trial was considered guilty in advance. With the rise of the Tokugawa, only four types of torture remained legal in Japan: scourging, squeezing with stone slabs, tying with a rope, and hanging by a rope. Moreover, torture was not a punishment in itself, and its purpose was not to cause maximum suffering to the prisoner, but to obtain a sincere confession of the crime committed. It should also be noted here that torture was allowed only to those criminals who faced the death penalty for their actions. Therefore, after a sincere confession, the poor fellows were most often executed. Executions were also very different: from the banal beheading to the terrible boiling in boiling water - this was the punishment for ninjas who failed a contract killing and were captured.
japanese thriller violence cinema
Before starting an overview of the topic of cruelty in Japanese cinema, in my opinion, it is worth paying attention to how cruelty and violence manifested themselves in Japan in real life, and can we say that cruelty is part of the Japanese character. It is worth noting that we can see manifestations of cruelty in different periods Japanese history- from antiquity to today. Cruelty manifested itself in different areas Japanese life.
Things that will be described above, such as the behavior of samurai, torture, executions, and other manifestations of violence were part of Everyday life Japanese for a long time. All this is reflected in the art of cinema, as it often depicts the realities of society.
A striking example of cruelty is the behavior of samurai. A samurai could kill absolutely any person who, as it seemed to the samurai, showed disrespect towards him or made any mistake in his actions. Situations were absolutely normal when samurai cut off ordinary people heads. Their barbaric cruelty was not condemned or punished. During hostilities, samurai resorted to various tortures, mockery and humiliation of the enemy. Rape and murder of women was considered an absolutely common practice. For samurai, this was not something too cruel and immoral, it was one of the ways to humiliate the enemy.
Also a shining example manifestations of cruelty can serve as torture during the Edo era (1603 - 1868). In medieval Japan, torture was common as punishment or interrogation of a prisoner. They were quite common among residents and were not perceived by the Japanese as a sign of cruelty. Most often, torture was used to extract a confession from a person for committing a crime. Until 1742, Japan had very cruel tortures, such as tearing out nostrils, cutting off fingers, and plunging limbs into boiling oil. But in 1742, the “Code of One Hundred Articles” was adopted, which abolished such cruel measures. After this, only four types of torture remained: Prasol A.F. From Edo to Tokyo and back. - M.: Astrel, 2012. - 333.. The easiest thing was beating with sticks. The victim was stripped to the waist, put on his knees and began to beat her on the shoulders and back. A doctor was present in the room during this procedure. Torture was applied to the prisoner until he told the truth or confessed to what he had done. Ibid. P. 333..
Pressure torture was also used. Stone slabs were placed on the victim’s lap; each slab weighed 49 kilograms. A case is described when a prisoner withstood the pressure of 10 plates - it is believed that this Weight Limit, which the prisoner was able to withstand Ibid. P. 333..
Torture by tying with rope was considered the third most cruel. The defendant was twisted into the “shrimp” position and left there for approximately 3-4 hours.
AND last view torture - hanging on a rope. This technique was used extremely rarely. Ibid. pp. 334 - 335. .
I would also like to say a few words regarding the death penalty. There were six main types of execution, which depended on the severity of the crime committed. Types of death penalty:
cutting off the head when the body was handed over to relatives;
cutting off the head when the body was not handed over to relatives;
beheading and public display;
burning at the stake;
execution on the cross;
cutting off the head with a bamboo saw and public demonstration 5 Prasol A.F. From Edo to Tokyo and back. - M.: Astrel, 2012. - 340 - 341. .
It is worth noting that cruelty Japanese torture Vasily Golovnin noted in his diaries: “... in Japanese criminal law it is commanded, in case of denial of the accused, to use the most terrible tortures that evil could invent in barbarian times...” Golovnin V. M. Notes of the fleet captain Golovnin about his adventures in captivity Japanese. M.: Zakharov, 2004.. In addition to Golovnin, the cruelty of the Japanese towards the guilty was also noted by the Americans, who participated in the forced opening of Japan in the second half of the 20th century.
In 1893, Sakuma Osahiro, a representative of a family of city government employees, compiled a treatise called “A True Description of the Practice of Torture,” which contained a description of the practice of torturing a prisoner. In the treatise, the author described the main tortures before the Edo era - torture by water, fire, torture in the “water prison” and torture of the “wooden horse”. The author of the treatise considered the abandonment of these methods and the transition to new types of torture, which we described earlier, as a real evolution. Important information for us is the role that the author of the treatise assigns to torture. Torture was not considered punishment or revenge for a crime committed. Torture was one part of the investigation of the crime. Torture was intended to bring the prisoner to repentance and was not considered a barbaric practice. This was one of the parts trial Sakuma Osahiro. A true account of the practice of torture. [ Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/Dokumenty/Japan/XIX/1880-1900/Sakuma_Osahiro/frametext.htm.
Cruelty was also used against people who studied various crafts and arts. The teacher could punish the student in the most cruel way, but this was done only for the benefit of the student. For example, a variety of tortures could be applied to a guilty geisha, the main thing was not to cause any harm to her face and not to disfigure the girl.
Of course, the most indicative bloody period of Japanese cruelty was the first half of the 20th century, when the country was actively involved in military activities. Cruelty was shown both to enemies and to loved ones. For example, during Russo-Japanese War(1904-1905) some soldiers killed their children and wives so as not to condemn them to starvation. But it is worth noting that the Japanese did not consider this a manifestation of cruelty, but on the contrary, it was a manifestation of nobility and devotion to their emperor.
They showed insane cruelty Japanese warriors to your enemies. The numbers speak for themselves: according to average estimates, about 300,000 people died during the Nanjing operation, 250,000 people died during the Zhejiang-Jiangxi operation, in addition, Japanese soldiers killed about 100,000 Filipinos and 250,000 Burmese. It is believed that Japanese wartime soldiers had a "three to three clear" policy, namely "burn the clear", "kill all the clear", "rob the clear". And looking at what the Japanese soldiers did, it becomes clear that the Japanese soldiers observed these slogans very clearly.
The complete destruction of entire cities and villages was absolutely normal for Japanese soldiers. Japanese researcher Teruyuki Hara wrote the following about the intervention in Siberia: “Of all cases “ complete elimination The burning of the village of Ivanovka was the largest in scale and the most cruel.”
In 1937, an event occurred that became known as the Nanjing Massacre. It all started with the Japanese bayoneting about 20 thousand young men of military age so that they would not be able to fight against Japan in the future. The Japanese did not spare the elderly, children or women. They were not just killed, they were mocked in the most in dirty ways. Women were subjected to brutal violence, people's eyes and other organs were torn out. Eyewitnesses say that Japanese soldiers raped all the women in a row: both very young girls and old women. The weapons that the soldiers had were practically not used to kill victims, since other, bloodier types of murder were used Terentyev N. The outbreak of war on Far East. [Electronic resource]. - Access mode:
http://militera.lib.ru/science/terentiev_n/05.html.
The Japanese also showed toughness in Manila. Many people were shot, some were burned alive after being doused with gasoline.
The soldiers took photographs with their victims “as a souvenir.” The faces of the soldiers in these photographs do not express an iota of remorse.
During the wars, the Japanese actively created and used “comfort stations” - places where Japanese soldiers “relaxed” with women. It is estimated that about 300,000 women passed through the “comfort stations,” many of whom were under 18 years old. But, as Japanese scientists note, no one was forced into prostitution; the girls went to work at the comfort station only of their own free will.
It is also worth noting the special development unit bacteriological weapons or detachment 731. Bacteria of plague, typhoid, dysentery and other deadly diseases were tested on civilians. Japanese scientists used the term “logs” to refer to their experimental subjects. Scientists conducted experiments not only for scientific purposes, but also for fun. The extent of the atrocity cannot be determined. But you can also look at this from the other side, many scientists say that the Japanese committed all these atrocities for the benefit of their own compatriots. They didn't want their soldiers to get sick and were looking for treatment options for various diseases.
The cruelty of the soldiers can be explained by one more fact. At that time the order inside Japanese army were very harsh. For any mistake, a soldier could be punished. Most often these were blows or slaps, but sometimes the punishment could be more severe. During the exercises, cruelty and humiliation also reigned in the army. Young soldiers were “cannon fodder” for the elite. Naturally, the young officers could only take out their accumulated aggression on the enemy. This, in fact, was one of the tasks of such a cruel upbringing of Seiichi Morimura. Devil's kitchen. - M.: Progress, 1983. .
Do not forget about the factor of devotion to the emperor. In order to show their loyalty to the emperor, Japanese soldiers went to great lengths. Shock troops special attacks or kamikazes went to certain death for the sake of the emperor.
If we talk about modernity, then cruelty manifests itself even today. Of course, these are not the same atrocities that occurred in medieval Japan or during World War II. But sometimes it’s very strange to see that in one of the most developed countries the world show such strange impulses of cruelty towards their citizens.
A striking example is modern entertainment programs. In them people are forced to swim in boiling water and perform various tasks that are harmful to health. On many TV shows you can see people breaking their limbs and, what’s strange, such TV shows bring great pleasure to the audience. During these programs we can hear the cheerful laughter of the audience. A favorite Japanese joke is the falling floor - when a person steps on it, the floor collapses and the person falls into boiling water. The Japanese like to use such jokes during various kinds of awards. A well-known test is when people come for an interview and after a while a “drowned boy” approaches them in silence. Employers thus study the applicant's reaction to the workplace.
Let's not forget about a serious problem in the lives of Japanese schoolchildren. It has long been known that in the Japanese system of education there is school bullying or ijime- bullying, harassment, bullying. Some schoolchildren are driven to suicide by bullying from peers. Ijime aimed at psychological suppression of the individual. For bullying, they usually choose a child who is different from others in some way. Moreover, children of fairly successful parents participate in bullying. Year after year, the number of bullying of schoolchildren continues to grow, and Nurutdinova A.R. has not yet been very successful in solving this problem. On the other side of the “Japanese miracle”, or “Ijime”: social disease Japanese life and education system. - M.: 2012. .
Lately The cruelty of the Japanese towards dolphins is increasingly discussed in the world. Dolphin hunting season is open in the country from September to April, and the Japanese kill during this time great amount fish The world community is outraged by the behavior of the Japanese. But it is worth noting that for the Japanese this is a long-standing tradition that has become part of everyday life, and not a manifestation of cruelty towards animals.
Thus, we see that cruelty has been present in the life of the Japanese since ancient times, and often what was considered cruel and immoral for a Westerner was not such for the Japanese. Therefore, we can say that Japanese and Western people have different concepts and attitudes towards cruelty.
Also worth noting fundamental differences Japanese and Western perceptions of cruelty. For the Japanese, the manifestation of cruelty, as we have already mentioned, was quite common, so they treated it with calm. In addition, people from childhood were inculcated with the awareness that there may be a need to sacrifice oneself for the sake of others. This also influenced a rather calm perception of death. Unlike Western people, death for the Japanese was not something terrible and terrible, it was a transition to new stage and therefore she was perceived with practically no fear. Apparently this is why Japanese directors depict scenes of cruelty in their works, because they do not see anything terrible in them. And the Japanese viewer also treats scenes of violence in films quite calmly.
For our work, the analysis of the manifestation of cruelty is important because it shows the difference in the concept of cruelty among Westerners and among the Japanese. We saw that often what seems cruel to Westerners seems completely normal to the Japanese. Besides, historical events, which we described above, served as material for the works of many directors.
Persons over the age of 14 are subject to criminal liability if they have committed murder, caused grievous bodily harm, committed rape, robbery, drug trafficking, arson, explosion, poisoning or other crimes that seriously violate public order. Complicity in a crime is the joint intentional participation of two or more persons in the commission of a crime.
The death penalty, as a punishment, was used in China for ridiculous and worthy actions.
IN Ancient China, in addition to the usual reasons for this, there was a law that threatened death penalty Anyone who would encroach on the use of saffron dye would have the royal clothes dyed with it. For wearing clothes or jewelry with dragon figures. For distorting the historical truth.
Later, it was used on cattle thieves, cigarette smugglers, pimps selling and showing pornography - the latter is reasonable.
In the 1st millennium BC, each judge invented his own reprisals against criminals and prisoners. The most common were: sawing off the foot (first they sawed off one foot, the second time the repeat offender caught the other), removal kneecaps, nose cutting, ear cutting, branding.
Criminals were burned at the stake, torn into two or four parts by chariots, their ribs were broken out, boiled in cauldrons, crucified (often they were simply forced to their knees, their hands tied and left in the sun).
Burying alive in the ground was especially popular. Often, in this way, prisoners were dealt with; archaeologists often discover characteristic burials of people buried alive (with open mouths, in crouched positions, sometimes ten people in one grave).
Castration was widely used; a significant part of those punished simply died soon after the operation from blood poisoning.
Ancient China was the kingdom of what in Chinese is called “zhou xing” - “mutilation punishments”: axes and axes, knives and saws for sawing off limbs, chisels and drills for removing kneecaps, sticks, whips, needles.
During the Han Dynasty (2nd century BC - 2nd century AD), beating with bamboo sticks or being sent to hard labor appeared.
In the 7th century AD, during the Tang Dynasty, Chinese legislation was drawn up, which, with minor changes, lasted until the beginning of the 20th century.
In an effort to make the punishment more severe, the judges came up with an execution called “carry out five types of punishment.” In this case, the criminal should have been branded, his arms or legs cut off, beaten to death with sticks, and his head put on display in the market for everyone to see.
For especially serious crimes, it was necessary to execute not only the perpetrator, but also to slaughter his entire family - his father, mother, wife, concubines, brothers and wives, sisters with husbands, children.
They did not keep convicts in prisons - it was too expensive. The prison was a rather frail structure without much security, so the main method of protection against escapes was stocks.
The most common type of last is “kanga” (or “jia”). It was used very widely: several prisoners were chained in this neck block.
During the era of the emperors of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), the lasts were a rectangular board measuring one meter by one meter, with a round cutout for the neck in the center. This board consisted of two sliding parts and, after the criminal’s neck was inserted into it, it was locked with a lock, weighing approximately 10-15 kg.
In addition to the neck restraints, hand stocks and metal handcuffs were also used.
If a criminal ever tried to escape or there was a goal to torture him, he was chained to boards with a neck block for a long time, sometimes cuts were left on him so that he would be tormented by rats, bedbugs and lice.
Since the Tang Dynasty, the law has recognized three types of acceptable torture:
1) Beating with sticks. The interrogated person was placed on the ground or tied while standing, and they began to beat him with sticks on the buttocks and thighs, sometimes on the heels. The size and weight of the poles were determined by the instructions, and in different eras was different.
2) Vise for arm and leg bones - something like a Chinese finger trap, connected by strings of sticks, between which the fingers of the accused were inserted. The executioner squeezed the sticks, breaking the phalanges of the fingers, also with the legs.
3) Torture by water, brainwashing. It differed from European torture in that water was poured into the nose; before torture, the person was hung by the legs to cause swelling of the brain.
Sometimes they used the rack, torture with fire, hot iron, they were forced to swallow needles, and their nails were pulled out. They hung me up by my arms and pulled the tendons of all my joints.
Executions:
1) Decapitation - they feared it more than strangulation, although it was the most painless. The Chinese believed that the afterlife they will look as they met their death. The victim was stripped to the waist and made to kneel with his hands tied behind his back. After this, the executioner struck with a wide sword.
2) Removal.This was done in two ways:
A) The criminal was tied to a pole, a rope was wrapped around his neck, the ends of which were in the hands of the executioners. They slowly twist the rope with special sticks, gradually strangling the convict. The strangulation could last a very long time, since the executioners at times loosened the rope and allowed the almost strangled victim to take several convulsive breaths, and then tightened the noose again.
B) “Cage” or “standing pads” (“Li-jia”) - the device for this execution is a neck block, which was fixed on top of caged bamboo or wooden poles, at a height of about two meters. The convict was placed in a cage, and bricks or tiles were placed under his feet to be slowly removed. The executioner removed the bricks, and the man hung with his neck pinched by the block, which began to choke him, this could continue for months until all the stands were removed.
3) Sawing in half. To do this, the body of the criminal was tightly clamped into an unclosed coffin, which was then placed vertically upside down. After this, they sawed from top to bottom with a long two-handed saw. The saw entered the crotch and slowly moved down, tearing muscles and viscera, crushing bones. More often in the paintings you can see horizontal sawing.
4)
Lin-Chi凌遲
- “death by a thousand cuts” or"sea pike bites"- the most terrible execution by cutting off small pieces from the victim’s body within long period time. This execution followed high treason and parricide, and was used from the Middle Ages until 1905, during the Qing dynasty. For the purpose of intimidation, Linchi was carried out in public places with a large crowd of onlookers. In some cases, the victim was pumped with opium to prolong the torture, from which it happened that the victims even began to laugh without feeling unbearable torture, but this rarely happened.
IN early XIX centuries, an average of 15-20 people were sentenced to this execution throughout the country every year, in ancient times - more.
The convict, stripped naked, was tightly tied to a wooden post, the executioners took knives and hacksaws. Then they began to cut off pieces of the criminal’s skin.
The court usually determined in advance how many cut pieces should be confiscated from the criminal; sometimes there were few, sometimes there were a lot:
1,2 - cut off the left and right eyebrows;
3.4 - cut off the meat from the left and right buttocks,
5.6 - cut off the left and right nipples and meat from the breast - was used most often.
7.8 - tear off the meat on the hands and ultimately saw off the hands;
8.9 - then saw off the arms up to the elbows;
11,12 - feet;
13.14 - tear off pieces from the leg up to the knee and then chop off;
15 - stomach with guts being torn out;
16 - neck with throat cut at the end;
17.18 - pulling from arms to shoulders;
19.20 - from toe to groin.
Death, as a rule, occurred in the middle of the execution.
In the Qing era, 36, 72, 120 and 1000, or even more, pieces of flesh were used.
In this case, the weeping covered the victim's body with a fine mesh net. The mesh was pulled tighter, and the executioner's assistant used tongs to grab a small piece that protruded in the cell and pulled it out. After that, another executioner grabbed it with a sharp knife.
As a form of mercy, execution was sometimes carried out on a dead criminal.
About Chinese suicide:
A person driven to despair, wanting to take revenge for an insult or desecration inflicted on him, committed suicide in the house or near the house of the offender.
Suicide for revenge was often associated with superstitions that after death a person, having turned into a spirit/demon, could take revenge on the enemy with greater ease than during life; in this case, poison, starvation or strangulation were preferred.
The soul of the suicide could not ascend to heaven and remained forever in the house of the offender, bringing a curse on the perpetrators.
What were the Japanese "death camps" like?
A collection of photographs taken during the liberation of prisoners from Japanese death camps has been published in Britain. These photographs are no less shocking than photographs from German concentration camps. Japan did not support the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, and cruel jailers were free to do whatever they wanted to the prisoners: starve them, torture them and abuse them, turning people into emaciated half-corpses, reports Chips.
When Allied forces began liberating prisoners of war from Japanese concentration camps after Japan's surrender in September 1945, they were greeted with a horrifying sight. The Japanese, who did not support the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, mocked captured soldiers, turning them into living skeletons covered in leather.
The exhausted prisoners were constantly tortured and abused by the Japanese. The inhabitants of the camps pronounced with horror the names of the guards, who were famous for their special sadism. Some of them were subsequently arrested and executed as war criminals.
Prisoners in Japanese camps were fed extremely poorly, they were constantly hungry, and most of the survivors were in an extreme state of exhaustion at the time of liberation.
Tens of thousands of starving prisoners of war were constantly subjected to abuse and torture. The picture shows torture devices discovered in one of the prisoner of war camps by the Allied troops who liberated the camp. The tortures were numerous and inventive. For example, “water torture” was very popular: guards first poured a large volume of water into the prisoner’s stomach through a hose, and then jumped on his swollen belly.
Some guards became especially famous for their sadism. The picture shows Lieutenant Usuki, known among the prisoners as the "Black Prince". He was an overseer on the construction of the railway, which prisoners of war called "the road of death." Usuki beat people for the slightest offense or even without any guilt. And when one of the prisoners decided to escape, Usuki personally cut off his head in front of the other prisoners.
Another cruel overseer - a Korean nicknamed "Mad Half-Breed" - also became famous for his brutal beatings. He literally beat people to death. He was subsequently arrested and executed as a war criminal.
Very many British prisoners of war suffered amputations of their legs in captivity - both due to cruel torture and due to numerous inflammations, the cause of which in a humid, warm climate could be any wound, and in the absence of adequate medical care, the inflammation quickly developed into gangrene.
The picture shows a large group of amputee prisoners after being released from the camp.
By the time of liberation, many prisoners literally turned into living skeletons and could no longer stand up on their own.
Horrifying photographs were taken by officers of the Allied forces liberating the death camps: they were supposed to become evidence of Japanese war crimes during World War II.
During the war, more than 140 thousand Allied soldiers were captured by the Japanese, including representatives from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, India and the United States.
The Japanese used prison labor to build highways, railroads, airfields, and to work in mines and factories. The working conditions were unbearable and the amount of food was minimal.
The “road of death”, a railway line built on the territory of modern Burma, enjoyed especially terrible fame. More than 60 thousand Allied prisoners of war were involved in its construction, about 12 thousand of them died during construction from hunger, disease and abuse.
The Japanese guards abused the prisoners as best they could. The prisoners were loaded with work that was clearly beyond the strength of exhausted people, and they were severely punished for failure to fulfill the quota.
Prisoners of war in Japanese camps lived in such ramshackle huts, in constant dampness, overcrowding and cramped conditions.
About 36,000 prisoners of war were transported to central Japan, where they worked in mines, shipyards, and munitions factories.
The prisoners ended up in the camp in the clothes in which they were captured by Japanese troops. They were not given any other things: only sometimes, in some camps, they received work clothes, which were worn only while working. The rest of the time the prisoners wore their own things. Therefore, by the time of liberation, most prisoners of war remained in complete rags.
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