BEIJING (Kyodo) A germ warfare exhibition in Harbin in northern China that showcases deadly medical experiments carried out by Japanese forces on live prisoners during the war will expand its area by three times and reopen as a peace park, the curator said Friday.

The Unit 731 Exhibition Hall, a 1,500-sq.-meter museum compound in the Harbin suburbs where the infamous unit did its germ warfare tests, will spend 50 million yuan ($6.23 million) to convert the site into a multiuse park, curator Wang Peng told Kyodo News by telephone. The park should open within a year, he added.

Work scheduled for the coming year includes preserving 23 historic buildings, some of which are deteriorating, China's official Xinhua News Service reported Friday. Workers will also move an exhibit of 300 pictures out of the site's office building into its own facility, leaving the office to administrative work, Wang said.