Hideo Shimizu, a former member of Unit 731 – the notorious Japanese germ warfare detachment during World War II – arrived in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, to confess and apologize to the families of the war victims, and to pray for the deceased.

Shimizu, 94, was among the last batch of Unit 731 Youth Corps members sent by Japan to Harbin, where he spent more than four months witnessing the war crimes committed by the unit, including the cultivation of pathogens, human dissections and human experiments. He fled China with the retreating Japanese forces on August 14, 1945.