91-year-old Yukiko Yamabe (left) is in an interview with the Xinhua News Agency in her residence in Tokyo, Japan, on August 12, 2020.

By Guo Dan, Gang Ye and Deng Min

"There is smoke and dust everywhere, the entire sky is dark, and there are dead bodies hanging on hydro poles..."

This is the dreadful memory told by Yukiko Yamabe, a 91-year-old Japanese veteran once assigned to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). Nearly 80 years ago, she followed her father to Benxi, China from Tokyo. The tragic scene of the gas explosion in the Benxi Lake coal mine had been so unforgettable that it always haunted Yukiko Yamabe. At that time, she did not understand why Japan had invaded China.

After August 15, 1945, Yukiko Yamabe understood the feeling of defeat. When the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army (later renamed the Northeast People's Liberation Army) started to recruit personnel, Yukiko signed up. With some simple knowledge of medical dressing, she moved to the north and south with the Chinese PLA. She participated in the campaigns of Liaoshen, Pingjin, Yisha, Hengbao, and Guangxi as a military nurse.

In 1953, Yukiko returned to Japan and made a living by doing part-time jobs. After retirement in 1984, she contacted her comrade-in-arms when she was in the Chinese PLA and went to the Changchun Bethune Medical University to work as a Japanese teacher.

In 1990, the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences organized a delegation to Jilin, Changchun, Harbin and other places to conduct field research themed on the 14-year history of Northeast China under the occupation of Japan. Yukiko, who had been concerned about this issue for a long time, participated in the field research, during which she witnessed the iron-clad evidences of the tragic crimes committed by the Japanese invaders, and also heard of the victims' testimony.

Thereafter, she devoted herself to exposing and criticizing the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese invaders in China, thus opening her second life of extraordinary significance.

She established the "Unit 731 Crime Certificate Exhibition Executive Committee", and is also committed to investigating the chemical weapons left by the Japanese military, actively helping Chinese people injured by gas bombs to claim compensation from the Japanese government. She has repeatedly negotiated with the Abandoned Chemical Weapons Office of the Japanese Cabinet on the issue of compensations for Chinese victims.

Yukiko, who was once a silly girl in her father’s eyes, has spared no effort to run around, just to let more Japanese people understand the truth of the history.