Unit 731 Historical Investigation

This investigation has allowed me to gain insight as to how historians utilize different methods, as well as challenges that they may face, when carrying out historical investigations. I feel that I have developed stronger skills of interpreting history, and have gained immense historical knowledge about a topic I would not otherwise learn about. In order to carry out the historical investigation, I read multiple books by historians of different ethnicities and origins, particularly from the Eastern Pacific region, I researched the chronological timeline of comfort stations, and I analyzed interpretations of events, all of which are methods often used by historians. I found a massive limitation in the sources I used to carry out my investigation. The majority of the books and websites I found, with a few exceptions,

I do not believe that I would have ever gained knowledge about this topic if it were not for my research question. In school, we have never been taught, in depth, of Korean history. What surprises me is that we do not learn of the many Japanese war crimes that occurred in World War II. Because our TOK presentations were being conducted around the same time as my research for my investigation, I was able to research, more in depth, about other Japanese war crimes committed in World War I, specifically, Unit 731. Unit 731, one of my real life situations, held numerous human experimentations, particularly on Korean civilians. What is interesting to me is that because of the alarming STD/VD rates rising among the army’s soldiers, they began experimenting on Koreans in Unit 731 by injected them with syphilis to research a cure. It was alarming to me to discover two war crimes by the Japanese during World War II through two different IB courses. Without the requirement of an internal assessment or TOK presentation, I can honestly state that I would never have learned about these topics in