Organ Harvesting in Chinese Death Camps Discussed at Auschwitz Forum

AUSCHWITZ: Professor Sen Nieh, surrounded by three panelists and panel moderator, speaks at the "Never Again: Appeal to the World" forum discussing illegal organ harvesting in death camps in China, held in Auschwitz, Poland on May 9, 2006. Jan Jekielek/The Epoch Times

AUSCHWITZ—There is compelling evidence of widespread illegal organ harvesting in China, said a panel of human rights advocates from the United States, Israel, Australia, and Poland, at The Epoch Times-sponsored “Never Again: Appeal to the World” Forum in Auschwitz, Poland on May 9. Panelists speaking at the Auschwitz Center for Dialogue and Prayer, also called for an urgent independent international inquiry into the allegations, to stop a possible accelerated slaughter of camp inmates in advance of a new Chinese law restricting organ harvesting from prisoners.

“The numbers just don’t add up,” said Dr. Jianmei Yu, Project Leader of Pre-Clinical Research Collaboration at the US Iomai Corporation. An “unexplained” organ bank is the only way to account for a large disparity between Beijing’s published numbers of executions, and the orders of magnitude-larger numbers of transplants advertised by organ transplant centers in China.

Massive Organ Bank

Chinese Deputy Minister of Health Huang Jiefu admitted in November 2005 that 95 percent of organ transplants in China come from executed death row prisoners, though other Chinese authorities have recently denied this practice.

However, in just one of the over 400 hospitals performing organ transplants in China, Tianjin Orient Organ Transplant Center, more organ transplants are performed than could reasonably come from the sum of all executions across China, said Dr. Jianmei.

NEVER AGAIN: The Chinese panelists at the "Never Again: Appeal to the World" forum on organ harvesting death camps in China walk through the infamous "Work Shall Set You Free" gate at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, on May 9, 2006. Jan Jekielek/The Epoch Times

AUSCHWITZ: Professor Sen Nieh, surrounded by three panelists and panel moderator, speaks at the "Never Again: Appeal to the World" forum discussing illegal organ harvesting in death camps in China, held in Auschwitz, Poland on May 9, 2006. Jan Jekielek/The Epoch Times

The two sources exposing Sujiatun have said that the organs were taken almost exclusively from incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners. Panelist Ms. Zhizhen Dai, whose husband was captured, tortured, and killed by Chinese authorities in 2001 because he practiced Falun Gong, urged the world to act to stop the torture and slaughter of innocent people.

Journalists calling various organ transplant centers around China in late March and early April discovered many hospitals were urging prospective patients to come in as quickly as possible for their transplants, as fewer organs would be available in the near future. This led investigators to fear the worst: That people are being slaughtered for their organs at an accelerated pace before the new rules come into effect.

PAIN LINGERS: Ms. Zhizhen Dai, panelist at the "Never Again: Appeal to the World" forum discussing illegal organ harvesting in death camps in China, speaks of the 2001 torture and murder of her husband at the hands of Chinese authorities. Her daughter Fadu naps in her arms. The forum was held in Auschwitz, Poland on May 9, 2006. Jan Jekielek/The Epoch Times

Victims of Genocide Speak Out

Israeli panelists brought with them a petition signed by over 10,000 Jews urging the discussion of Chinese organ harvesting death camps specifically in Auschwitz.

They included Larisa Vilsker, whose father was one of two members of her Polish Jewish family who survived the holocaust.

“My whole existence and consciousness would not accept or believe that this phenomenon can still happen,” she said, speaking about learning of the recent evidence of organ harvesting in China.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are submitted to harvesting their internal organs for sale” I see it as my moral obligation to call, with your assistance, to the international community, to expose the heart of such evil quickly.”

Engage the People

INTERESTED: Dr. Jianmei Yu speaks to a captivated audience of over 20 Polish congressmen and senators at the "Law and Justice" Party club in the Sejm, the Polish Parliament in Warsaw, Poland on May 9, 2006. Jan Jekielek/The Epoch Times

“The party is like a shiny red apple on the outside, but totally rotten at the core,” he said, suggesting that the world in engage the Chinese people, as opposed to the Chinese regime, which in his view does not represent them at all.

Following the conference, the panel toured the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, and then left for Warsaw to present their findings at a meeting in the Sejm, the Polish Parliament, with over 20 Polish congressmen and senators.