Episode: 4313
Title: HPR4313: Why I made a 1-episode podcast about a war story
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4313/hpr4313.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 22:49:59

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This is Hacker Public Radio episode 4,313, for Wednesday the 12th of February 2025.
Today's show is entitled, Why I Made a One Episode Podcast About a War Story.
It is the first show by new host Semla's M. St. Louis and is about 17 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is, the reasons that led me to produce a loan audio drama about Unit 731.
My name is a French name.
It is Antoine, but I am 100% Brazilian with little of Lebanese blood.
I'm here to talk to you today about a little thinker inside the prison, a little common
citizen from outside the Chinese country, inside a Chinese prison.
Not a common prison, it is Unit 731.
What is Unit 731?
What are you bringing to Hacker Public Radio Antoine?
Well, dear listener, it is the impuse and the reason for me having created an audio drama.
I will tell you what and why.
What is the story?
The chaos that came to me asking to come out, to be produced in some manner.
And why I decided to present it by a podcast of history fictionalized.
This program, so today, is why I made a one-episode podcast about a war story.
First, the what?
Walking on the World Wide Web, a notable event of World War II was revealed before my eyes.
A war scene that was under dust for decades.
But people, even participants of it in Variety Degrees, came to review the fact, in
journals, newspapers, etc.
And so today, we know it.
China in Japan, and here is a bit of history.
There is a term in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is referenced in the notes that is
the base for this introduction.
China and Japan engaged in war by the year 1931.
And this date is when Japan started colonizing China by Manchuria, north-eastern of the
country, this region.
The resistance, by part of China, started only in 1937, with the reaction of the Chinese
troops.
Japan was so much more powerful though, and that's why China took so long to decide
fighting the imperial army of Japan.
It took time, and without the best outcome, but anyway, it demanded courage by part of the
Chinese.
It showed force and humanity, more of value for fighting.
And this conflict is part of the Second World War, that by one side had Japan, Italy and
Germany, the famous German Reich, heading the Axis powers, who were fought against by
the Allied powers, headed by the Soviet Union and, way to Britain and France and United
States and China.
Even with basically all the rest of the world against the Axis, the Japanese occupied the
pre-provinces of Manchuria from 1932 until the end of the war, in September, 21945, making
a fit the main territorial base for development of weapons.
The Encyclopedia Britannica explains us the following quote.
On March 9, 1932, the Japanese created the puppet state of Manchukubo, out of the three
historical Manchurian provinces.
The last King Manchur Emperor, Puyi, was brought to Manchuria from his retirement, in
Tianjin and made the chief executive, and later Emperor of the new state.
The Manchukubo government, though nominally in Chinese hands, was in fact rigidly controlled
and supervised by the Japanese, who proceeded to transform Manchuria into an industrial
and military base for Japan's expansion into Asia.
The Japanese took over the direction, financing and development of all the important Manchurian
industries, with the fortunate result that by the end of World War II, Manchuria was the
most industrialized region in China.
Now very briefly, we come to the unit 731.
It was a big Japanese construction with lots of complexes, first officially designated
as a epidemic prevention and water supply department, and was commanded by the tenant
general of the army and microbiologists, Shirou Ishii.
I wanted until now to say what is the thing that came to my heart, to my knowledge, and
then to my heart, to make me talk about it.
Now I want to say the why, why I have the motivation to do something about the knowledge.
I came to know of the thing by chance navigating the web, and suddenly came to a strange photo
of human experiencing the description of the unit 731.
I searched more, more about it, and was simply astonished to know it happened.
And inflicted by the so-estimated Japan, I had quieter of technology and populated
by reverent people, the world thinks.
We are, that is, I am often so biased for the good or the bad, that we don't have the
judgment of facts.
That is what the general public know about World War II, including me.
The Holocaust of the Jews, this is much, this is much.
But more happened, and more can be known for our critical view of the world, the countries
and its interests, and the rational thinking that might be better with this knowledge.
The unit 731 was not the only one with deadly human experimentation, or the facilities
existed, but 731 came to be better known, documents preserved, authors known, and participants
that have talked about what happened decades later.
First it was hidden, but now, after the events, especially in the 1990s, documents and
confessions came to the ground and can't be denied anymore.
And in other sites, other facilities, Shiroshi was already inflicting the sufferings, probably
since the fall of 1933, mainly with Chinese people, but also with Soviets, Mongolians and
Koreans, men, women, and children.
That's basically it, the research I made, and the movie saw a fiction based on it, or
Randolph's.
Let me just drink about the thing, so I felt to throw it, what was developed and developing
inside in some manner, throw it, and tell it, throw it's little dramatic.
I like the voice, the radio, and it is accessible to do, not to requiring many equipments, etc.
So my first choice was to tell it.
How?
At first, I hypothesized about proposing a script to some Brazilian podcast that tells stories.
Soon I realized it could not fit so well in the lines of the ones I know, of the podcasts
that exist, that they know.
So some days after, the idea of a little fictionalized story, short story came as a thing I like
and also with the advantages of one.
Being beautiful, we are made of stories, real or otherwise appropriated by the mind and
the senses, two being impactful, connection with characters, being impactful by being precise,
by being focused, and so another advantage, three being fast in the way I proposed it
to be one little episode.
Not necessarily only these or in disorder, but the idea of why doing a little one episode
podcast came to this conclusion.
As any interested in the subject can note, there are so many technical things produced
about it.
I wanted to do something that caught the emotions and the interest of people, spreading the
possibility of them knowing what else where they wouldn't come to see or they wouldn't
be interested to know.
I wanted to make it different in that sense, but as true to the facts as a little audio
fusion can be, it's history to our minds for our own construction and of our worldview.
But if not, if the listener just comes for the art, it can be, I hope, an enjoying
story after all.
And it's the why I decided to do something with a knowledge and how it became a fiction
podcast.
That is, the why it was because there's fire in my heart, fire in my thumb to tell it.
And the how it's to do why a podcast, to do something I like and different about the
subject and the attractive.
That was my theme here for our moment.
This is what I had to you, the motivation behind need to create.
It was hard.
I get moved easily with shocking scenes in words or images, deciding how to let go and
then produce in it was not tranquille also.
The hands-on or the technical part I will share in channels as follows.
I have written some pages, summarizing the events I have outlined in here.
And having the base, I came with a story in my mind and in two days or three, I think
I wrote it in three and a half pages, the story of the audio drama that I made in Portuguese.
In a more silent night, I went to my room and today also is a more silent night here in
my room, with my notebook and a USB condenser microphone, and I recorded, fast.
The editing, cutting, compressing, normalizing and choosing, free sounds, and fifth fitting
then in the story took a long and long time and patience, maybe ten or more dedicated
hours a long day.
I'm not very efficient, some of it was the necessary lack of hurry for art, but some
was my loneliness in getting to the technical part of what I wanted to do.
Like this beat of information in this millisecond, synchronizing with this beat of the sound,
move track 3 to get with track 4 without affecting the sync of the other tracks and clips
in the same track.
I had the music at this point, but with more gentle fade here, I used audacity, I had a
reaper license, I remember being a bit more efficient with it, but I lost the license
after formatting without having the serial number anymore.
So I went with my long choice of the free and open source alternative.
That was my work for the Autodrama podcast and my language, which in between the days
I have been preparing this presentation script for HDR.
I have released, you may find it in the description or searching in your podcast app for the name
in Portuguese, or the portamento de prevenção de epidemias e distribuição de água, under the
outer name, Saint-Lus and Saint-Louis.
I don't know if it will be released in English, the language is a bit difficult to me as
you can listen, however I made a first minute of it, so you can enjoy, have in mind what
I was talking about.
Thank you.
Be with one minute of the report of the Survivor, bye.
The epidemic prevention and water supply department.
This account was found in the records of Parkinson Tribly, or Tribly, of Russian and Polish
origins.
He was recruited by Dr. Shiroishi for experiments at Unit 721, a legitimate opportunity to stay
alive, which he ultimately proved false for reasons he did not expect.
What we will hear now is his writing unedited, except that, for organization, we will name
the three parts that he composed as follows.
One, introduction, two, activities, three, debarque.
The author goes, advances, and goes back in his organization, but what he brings is...
One, introduction.
Even God we know that, from the beginning, man has lived in war.
It's envy, a desire for power, a desire for money.
It's never a good motivation, but purely selfishness.
I arrived at the department a week ago, and although I have no desire to collaborate
with what happens here, I know enough to realize that it's impossible to live this place
free.
When the Japanese invaded this region, Manchuria, in the long war against China, we did not
expect the brutality that was witnessed it.
A few years ago, after the end of the Great War, several countries signed the Geneva Protocol.
Although it only prohibits the use of chemical weapons, biological agents as fixating and
related specificities, we believed it would mean more that it would signify a general
humanization of combat methods on land, sea, and air, when there might be another great
war.
I did not expect it to come in my lifetime, nor to be captured, to participate in it firsthand.
Thank you for your presence.
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