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Japanese veteran arrives in China's Harbin for visit to apologize

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Hideo Shimizu, a Japanese veteran who served in the notorious Japanese germ warfare unit during World War II, arrived in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin on Monday.

Shimizu, a former Unit 731 Youth Corps member, is scheduled to visit the origin of his grim lifelong memories – the Japanese bacteriology unit's sprawling complex in Harbin, where thousands of Chinese civilians and Allied prisoners of war were killed from the late 1930s up until the end of the war.

"I have always wanted to go to China to pray for the deceased and apologize to their families," Shimizu said at a press conference in Japan's Iida City in July.

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