Tears shed as war crimes remembered ( 2003-11-21 23:43) (China Daily)
When Pak Yong-sim recognized on Friday the place
where she once served as a comfort woman 64 years ago, she burst into tears.
An exhibition of
chinese comfort women who were forced to serve Japanese army during World
War. [Newsphoto]
No 12 Lijixiang in Nanjing of East China's Jiangsu Province is now an old
two-storey house. It was once a brothel full of Korean comfort women for
Japanese invaders.
Pak slowly walked up the stairs, turned left, and then entered into the room.
According to Pak, 82, many comfort women once lived here, most of whom were
abducted from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Those then beautiful young women lived a miserable life. They had no freedom
and were often beaten by the Japanese soldiers.
However, they got on well with their Chinese neighbours who they talked with
through their windows. Sometimes they even used long bamboo poles to send gifts
to the Chinese girls living opposite.
"Pak is really brave and admirable for coming back here,'' said Su Zhiliang,
professor of the History Department of Shanghai Normal University.
As an expert in the problems of comfort women, he said he had never met any
Chinese victims who had the courage to point out the place where they were used
as comfort women.
"Pak took the trouble of travelling a long distance to identify this place.
Her deed will surely give Chinese comfort women quite a shake-up,'' Su said.
"And she will give a bigger shake-up to the Japanese Government,'' he added.
Pak was born in what is today the DPRK on December 15, 1921. In August 1939,
when she was only 17 years old, she was abducted by Japanese policemen and then
sent to Nanjing.
From then on, Pak began her painful life in No 12 Lijixiang. Every day she
was forced to "comfort'' about 20 or 30 Japanese soldiers.
She stayed in the city as a comfort woman until 1943 when she was sent to the
Japanese battlefront in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.
When Chinese troops won the battle in Songshan Mountain of Yunnan Province in
1944, Pak and another three comfort women were captured. She was already
pregnant.
An American journalist took a photo of them. This is the only photo known of
a pregnant comfort woman.
Later Pak was sent to hospital where she had an abortion -- one that left her
incapable of having another child.
After the War of Resistance against Japan, Pak was sent back to her hometown.
In 1955, she adopted a boy. Now the unmarried old woman is living with the
family of her foster son.
