https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj The map is an interactive experience where viewers can learn more about the history of comfort women and read their testimonies. The red pins are first hand accounts *trigger warning they are graphic* The blue pins are where different statues are located, the purple pins are linked to museums dedicated to "comfort women" and women's stories during WWII, and the green pins link to other art and memory projects focusing on "comfort women" that are particularly interesting en-us 2021-03-15 01:17:16 UTC 2021-03-15 04:46:16 UTC hello@padlet.com martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308596239 One day in June, at the age of 13, I had to prepare lunch for my parents who were working in the field and so I went to the village well to fetch water. A Japanese garrison soldier surprised me there and took me away, so that my parents never knew what had happened to their daughter. I was taken to the police station in a truck, where I was raped by several policemen. When I shouted, they put socks in my mouth and continued to rape me. The head of the police station hit me in my left eye because I was crying. That day I lost my eyesight in the left eye.

After 10 days or so, I was taken to the Japanese army garrison barracks in Heysan City. There were around 400 other Korean young girls with me and we had to serve over 5,000 Japanese soldiers as sex slaves every day - up to 40 men per day. Each time I protested, they hit me or stuffed rags in my mouth. One held a matchstick to my private parts until I obeyed him. My private parts were oozing with blood.

One Korean girl who was with us once demanded why we had to serve so many, up to 40, men per day. To punish her for her questioning, the Japanese company commander Yamamoto ordered her to be beaten with a sword. While we were watching, they took off her clothes, tied her legs and hands and rolled her over a board with nails until the nails were covered with blood and pieces of her flesh. In the end, they cut off her head. Another Japanese, Yamamoto, told us that "it’s easy to kill you all, easier than killing dogs." He also said "since those Korean girls are crying because they have not eaten, boil the human flesh and make them eat it."

One Korean girl caught a venereal disease from being raped so often and, as a result, over 50 Japanese soldiers were infected. In order to stop the disease from spreading and to ’sterilize’ the Korean girl, they stuck a hot iron bar in her private parts.

Once they took 40 of us on a truck far away to a pool filled with water and snakes. The soldiers beat several of the girls, shoved them into the water, heaped earth into the pool and buried them alive.

I think over half of the girls who were at the garrison barracks were killed. Twice I tried to run away, but both times we were caught after a few days. We were tortured even more and I was hit on my head so many times that all the scars still remain. They also tattooed me on the inside of my lips, my chest, my stomach and my body. I fainted. When I woke up, I was on a mountainside, presumably left for dead. Of the two girls with me, only Kuk Hae and I survived. A 50-year-old man who lived in the mountains found us, gave us clothes and something to eat. He also helped us to travel back to Korea, where I returned, scarred, barren and with difficulties in speaking, at the age of 18, after five years of serving as a sex slave for the Japanese.]]> 2021-03-15 01:47:25 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308596239 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308600319 When I was 17 years old, in 1936, the head of our village came to our house and promised me to help me find a job in a factory. Because my family was so poor, I gladly accepted this offer of a well-paid job. I was taken to the railway station in a Japanese truck where 20 or so other Korean girls were already waiting. We were put on the train, then onto a truck and after a few days’ travel we reached a big house at the River Mudinjian in China. I thought it was the factory, but I realized that there was no factory. Each girl was assigned one small room with a straw bag to sleep on, with a number on each door.

After two days of waiting, without knowing what was happening to me, a Japanese soldier in army uniform, wearing a sword, came to my room. He asked me "will you obey my words or not?," then pulled my hair, put me on the floor and asked me to open my legs. He raped me. When he left, I saw there were 20 or 30 more men waiting outside. They all raped me that day. From then on, every night I was assaulted by 15 to 20 men.

We had to undergo medical examinations regularly. Those who were found disease-stricken were killed and buried in unknown places. One day, a new girl was put in the compartment next to me. She tried to resist the men and bit one of them in his arm. She was then taken to the courtyard and in front of all of us, her head was cut off with a sword and her body was cut into small pieces.]]> 2021-03-15 01:48:59 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308600319 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308606106 I thought I was drafted as a labour worker when, at the age of 17, the Japanese village leader’s wife ordered all unmarried Korean girls to go to work at a Japanese military factory. I worked there for three years, until the day that I was asked to follow a Japanese soldier into his tent. He told me to take my clothes off. I resisted because I was so scared, I was still a virgin. But he just ripped my skirt and cut my underwear from my body with a gun which had a knife attached to it. At that point I fainted. And when I woke up again, I was covered with a blanket but there was blood everywhere.

From then on, I realized that during the first year I, like all the other Korean girls with me, was ordered to service high-ranking officials, and as time passed, and as we were more and more ’used’, we served lower-ranking officers. If a woman got a disease, she usually vanished. We were also given ’606-shots’ so that we would not get pregnant or that any pregnancies would result in miscarriage.

We only received clothes two times per year and not enough food, only rice cakes and water. I was never paid for my ’services’. I worked for five years as a ’comfort woman’, but all my life I suffered from it. My intestines are mostly removed because they were infected so many times, I have not been able to have intercourse because of the painful and shameful experiences. I cannot drink milk or fruit juices without feeling sick because it reminds me too much of those dirty things they made me do.]]> 2021-03-15 01:51:15 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308606106 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308632541 I was forced to stay at the hospital which they have made as a garrison. I met six women in the garrison after two or three days in the place. The Japanese soldiers were forcing me to have sex with several of their colleagues. Sometimes 12 soldiers would force me to have sex with them and then they would allow me to rest for a while, then about 12 soldiers would have sex with me again.
There was no rest, they had sex with me every minute. That's why we were very tired. They would allow you to rest only when all of them have already finished. Maybe, because we were seven women in the garrison, there were a fewer number of soldiers for each one of us.
But then, due to my tender age, it was a painful experience for me. I stayed for three months in that place after which I was brought to a rice mill also here in Angeles. It was nighttime when we were fetched to be transferred. When I arrived in the rice mill, the same experience happened to us. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening... not only 20 times. At times, we would be brought to some quarters or houses of the Japanese. I remembered the Pamintuan Historical House. We were brought there several times. You cannot say no as they will definitely kill you. During the mornings, you have a guard. You are free to roam around the garrison, but you cannot get out. I could not even talk to my fellow women two of whom I believed were Chinese. The others I thought were also from Pampanga. But then, we were not allowed to talk to each other.]]> 2021-03-15 02:02:16 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308632541 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308642102 At that time, my fiancée had been drafted by the Japanese military and sent to the south. I was helping my father's business at home. One day, the Japanese police called and told me to come because they had a job for me. They said that I would be preparing meals and mending torn clothes for the soldiers. I did not want to go, but the police said that all men and women must come because the country was at war then and that everybody must follow the General National Mobilization Law. So I went to work. I saw many Japanese soldiers. There were some other women like me, too. We got up in the morning, washed our faces and cooked breakfast to feed the soldiers. We washed their clothes and mended torn clothes. Then, at night, we were called and confined to a room. ...it was a terrible job. I was only weeping. In the daytime I sewed clothes and did the soldiers' laundry. It was easy. But at night I died. I was dying. I felt as if I was dead. I wished to flee away, but I did not know the way. Soldiers were standing at the gates. If you fled, you would be shot. I was too young. I did not know anything. I could not realize that I was pregnant. I began to throw up what I had eaten. Then a woman, who was with me, said that I was pregnant. In two months I had a miscarriage. Even now when I think about it, tears come to my eyes. Oh... I am sorry to make you hear such a terrible story.
I thought that my fiance had died, but long after the war he returned unexpectedly. We married. I could not tell that story to him. I have never told it to anyone. How can you tell such a thing?
50 years passed. I came to know that there are people who had endured the same experiences. And I could not keep silent. I could not bear it any more. I told my husband. I bowed and begged him to forgive me. He was surprised and said that he had painful experiences during war, but you had also such painful experiences. There was nothing we can do about it. That was the war. Saying such, he forgave me. Hitherto I had always feared what my husband would do on knowing this story. I have thought and thought only about it. When I told this to my husband, I felt at ease.
Now I am living with my husband, only the two of us. I can not work any more in farm, because I have pains in my knees. I grow vegetables a little and go to sell them. As we are old, we do not eat rice much. So we can live in this way. But we have no money. Our life is so hard.]]> 2021-03-15 02:06:46 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308642102 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308654087 How did I feel? I felt as if we were taken here to be killed. I could not but weep. No one talked. All were weeping. That night we slept there and in the morning we were put in those rooms. Soldiers came to my room, but I resisted with all my might. The first soldier wasn't drunk and when he tried to rip my clothes off, I shouted "No!" and he left. The second soldier was drunk. He waved a knife at me and threatened to kill me if I didn't do what he said. But I didn't care if I died, and in the end he stabbed me. Here( She pointed her chest).
He was taken away by the military police and I was taken to the infirmary. My clothes were soaked with blood. I was treated in the infirmary for twenty days. I was sent back to my room. A soldier who had just returned from the fighting came in. Thanks to the treatment my wound was much improved, but I had a plaster on my chest.
Despite that the soldier attacked me, and when I wouldn't do what he said, he seized my wrists and threw me out of the room. My wrists were broken, and they are still very weak. Here was broken.... There's no bone here. I was kicked by a soldier here. It took the skin right off... you could see the bone.]]> 2021-03-15 02:11:43 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308654087 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308669003 The ‘comfort station' had two stories, and was the third house in Jokgyong village. There were about twenty rooms, all with tatami floors. First, three Japanese soldiers came in, and after that, it was only soldiers. Usually, ten to
fifteen soldiers came each day. If the soldiers gave money to me, I gave it to the owners in exchange for condoms and tissue. The amount was about one or
two Chinese yuan, and the managers kept record of it in an account book.
On Sundays the soldiers waited in lines outside. Each soldier was allotted about one hour. When I refused to allow a soldier to go twice, I was sometimes
beaten. Some soldiers showed up drunk and threatened to kill me. I fought with those who refused to wear a condom. If a soldier was dissatisfied with any
of the women, he complained directly to the proprietor who then beat and kicked that woman. Of the military units of the time, I remember the "Sakura unit". There was a bathhouse. After servicing a soldier, I went to the bathhouse
and washed with medicated water. Every Monday I went to a hospital in Jokgyong village and was checked for sexually transmitted diseases. On the day before the examination, the groups of women examined each other with a
device that resembled a duck’s bill (a speculum). The owner hated it if anyone had contracted a disease so they covered cotton wool with dust and swabbed themselves. This way, even if there was an infection, it was possible to pass the examination. Women who contracted syphilis were hospitalized and treated
with an injection. They usually recovered within fifteen days.
There were no rest days, and the women couldn’t leave the brothel. Once a month, we went to a bathhouse outside the Jokgyong village’s iron gate. We were fed by Chinese people twice a day. The proprietors of the ‘comfort station'
bought us clothes and makeup but gave us no money. At first, I borrowed money for train fare and clothing from the Korean man who brought me. He said that it would take three years of work to repay the loan. Then, one morning, I heard that Japan had lost the war. The Japanese women in the next house were crying. The money I had received from the soldiers
became useless and I threw it away. Koreans gathered in Jokgyong village. I could now return to Korea, but wondering what I could do after going back
with this body, I decided not to go.
I remained in China, married a Chinese man who already had three children, and became their stepmother. I kept my Korean citizenship and still live in
Wuhan, China. I wish to visit my hometown, but because of citizenship problems it is a difficult process. ]]> 2021-03-15 02:18:35 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308669003 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308689058 Of all the women, I had the hardest time at “World View“ I was so young I had not even begun to menstruate yet. The first time I was forced to service a soldier, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t stop crying, and I ran out. The first man to come in my room was an officer named Takahashi,
and when he saw me run away crying, he didn’t do anything and left. That officer reported it, and someone from the office exploded with anger at me. In the ‘comfort station' office, I got very frightened. Since I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t speak the language, I had no money and no idea how to take
the train, and the area was surrounded with soldiers, escape was impossible. Even so, when the soldiers came into my room, horrifying and terrifying me, I
cried and tried to run away. The manager slapped my cheek until my nose bled, withheld my food and shut me up in a narrow room. However, complete escape was impossible, and while crying, I became a tool for the sexual
appetites of the soldiers.
At the ‘comfort station' I was called by the name “Kaneko“. I was forced to service dozens soldiers every day. Rest was not permitted during
menstruation. Especially on Sundays, there were a lot of soldiers, and some of them demanded dominant and barbaric sexual acts. It was truly an unbearable life.
If the ‘comfort women' were too exhausted and tried to refuse the soldiers' demands, they were threatened with knives, beaten, and subjected to all sorts of violence. The scars still remain on my body. I can’t hear out of my right ear.
The wounds of my time as a comfort woman are left behind on my body. Amid the growingly desperate soldiers, who wanted to die here as if dying at the
hands of an enemy, there were those who demanded that I join them in seppuku. To me, who wanted to live under any circumstances, the orders for
seppuku were terrifying.]]> 2021-03-15 02:27:32 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308689058 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308703653 After the sterilization operation, those of us Korean girls were sent to various places in the South Pacific. Departed from the chief magistrate's daughter, I was sent to a Japanese military battalion. The "comfort station" was inside the
army, and altogether 20-30 of us were placed there. A big room was for our common usage, and a tiny room fit for one person just to lie down, was given to each of us. I was called by a Japanese name, Kukuko(菊子). On average,
about 50 Japanese soldiers came a day, and about 100 on weekends.
When I fainted, the soldier in charge poured water over me. I was also given the morphine shots. In the morning of weekends, shots were given in advance. This was done by force, whether we liked it or not. My upper left arm still has the burn-like scar, and inside is felt something hard, like a stone. The soldiers used condoms. I was not infected by STDs, but addicted to the
drug. We did not receive any money. Instead, military tickets were given, which were never exchanged into money.
When I came back home, I found my father sick in bed. After I had left, he was released form the police cell, but was shocked by the fact that I was taken as a
"comfort girl". After 9 years in bed, he died. I was desperate to cut my drug addiction, and I succeeded.
I married a widower, but I couldn't bear any child, of course. I raised two stepsons, both of whom are married. I am independent now, with a separate family register. I earn my living as a middleman in the oriental medicine. ]]> 2021-03-15 02:33:42 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308703653 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308716048 At that time, they treated us like we were animals, not human beings. From the very first day, they wouldn’t leave me alone. As soon as I got there, they threw around all kinds of curses and were doing that horrible, unspeakable thing. That…you know. How was I supposed to know anything? All those bastards who were there then are probably dead by now. Ah, actually, if
they’re around the same age as me, they might still be alive.
It was the afternoon of the first day that I arrived. An officer with two studs on his sleeve came by. Then he came over to me but he only observed and left. However, at night that officer came back with a long sword and demanded that I do a strange thing with him. But when I rejected him, he pulled out that long
sword, demanding that I do as he said and making a huge uproar about killing me if I didn’t. I was ever so scared. I was so frightened that I panicked and ran
away. The house where I hid only had a floor heater, not even a fire hole, and there was only a little hole in the wall just big enough for people to go in and out.
Even though I wondered how the people living there could live under those conditions, that was still the one and only place that I could hide after I ran away. If I had been taken by that officer, I probably would have died that night.
As I was crying the next morning, one unnie came over to me and said that I have to do as people like that officer tell me. That’s the only way to stay alive, she said. She had been there before I arrived. But still, I really didn’t want to do that act. So I resisted a lot and ran away a lot too. ]]> 2021-03-15 02:39:14 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308716048 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308735493 It was night. We sneaked under the barbed wire, and ran in the opposite
direction from the one we had taken during our previous escape attempt. We wandered around not far from the plant but were seized by a military policeman. We had promised to stay together whatever befell us and held hands tightly, but I found myself alone when I was thrown into a truck. I was left alone with the policeman and a driver.
My captor had three stars on his red lapel. I didn’t know his name or rank at first, but later found out his name was Corporal Kobayashi Tadeo. He sat with the driver through the journey, but half-way through stopped the vehicle and told me to get off. It was very dark; nothing was visible. He raped me. I had no experience of sex. So I was too scared even to try resisting. If such a thing happened now, I would kill myself by biting my tongue off. But at that time I was scared and helpless. We got back on the truck and rode further until we arrived at an army unit. Two guards stood outside, and behind the buildings was a tent. My captor took
me there and told me to stay put. There were already five or so women there, who looked at me in a daze and said nothing. Soon, day dawned. The tent was partitioned into five or six cubicles. Mine was the size of one and a half tatami,
but had no actual mat. I slept on a simple military bed. Most of the women were older than me, and at first I was scared and not sufficiently composed to
talk with them, so I didn’t realize what we were there for.

The reason I came forward to report to the Council was to pour out my resentment. I have tried to write down my experiences several times, but because I have had to move so often, I kept losing the notes. I am telling my life story so that nobody else will ever have to go through the same things as
me. I think we must try to get what we justly deserve from Japan: a proper apology and proper compensation. There are still some who say that what we did is shameful, but they are indeed ignorant people. ]]> 2021-03-15 02:47:48 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308735493 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308753945 I arrived in Guangdong via Taiwan. Until then I still believed I was going to a workshop. However, an army surgeon gave all of the girls an examination for venereal diseases and assigned to the comfort station where I began my
nightmarish days. The first night there? The army surgeon who examined us came to my room. I was so scared of his coming that I ran away to the backyard and hid myself into the bushes. He chased me and then hit my face badly. After being beaten for a while, I felt numb on my whole face. In this way
my life was ruined. 
Each room had its own number and we were not allowed to go out. If it was necessary, we could go out only after the soldier’s examination. During weekdays I received about 15 soldiers a day, but it seemed more than 50 during weekends.
We moved from Guangdong to Hong Kong, and then to Singapore after about three months. In Singapore sometimes we went on official trips to army bases located in deep valleys. There were so many soldiers rushing in that I could not even stretch my legs at night. After staying in Singapore for several months, we were on the move constantly to Sumatra, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Java to
receive soldiers there. Suddenly, the soldiers stopped coming. The war was over. However, we didn’t learn of our liberation.
One day the Japanese soldiers took us to the 10th Army Hospital in Singapore and trained us in nursing to disguise us as nurses. After for a while, we stayed in a US POW camp and then took a ship for Korea to come back home. I left home at 15 and came back at 20; it had been five years.
Shocked when I told her that I could not get married because of being a
comfort woman, my mother died of sorrow. She died wishing for me to get married and have children and a happy life. So I followed her wish and got married, but ended up failing in marriage as I could not have a child. I opened my own small store and have had my living.
One day on TV I came to learn of an activity to resolve the “comfort woman“ issue and then made my report on January 17th, 1992. Afterward I worked hard telling of the crimes committed by the Japanese army. In June 1993 I
went with the Korean Council to the World Human Rights Conference held in Vienna to make a testimony about what I had been through and to demand acknowledgement and compensation from the Japanese government. Reflections and testimonies of my horrible experiences were just as hard and
painful as if I were repeating the same experience again right now. However, I wanted to tell of who ruined my life like this. I also wanted to speak out about
the comfort women issue that is neither over yet, nor resolved for all the victims who have survived and suffered like this.
It was probably in 1995 that the Japanese government said that it would not compensate, instead, it could give us “Asia Peace Fund for Women“. I really felt humiliated. I wondered if my testimony to the world to disclose the Japanese army’s crimes was simply regarded as a gesture for some money.
When I began to give my testimony and work for the comfort women issue, Japan first dishonored us saying that there was no coercion and we did it out of our own will to make money. Then now they attempt to solve the issue with
money while we have demanded they accept legal responsibilities. Therefore, I was opposed to the civil fund.
My body is still covered all over with wounds. I cannot even properly digest a spoonful of rice, so that I have to depend on digestive medicines to eat. I feel
sore all over my body as if I am pricked with pins. While other seniors have happy lives full of love from their children and grandchildren, I have had such a
lonely life without children. Who made my life such a miserable one?
I don’t know when I’ll die. Going to bed at night, I wonder if I can really
achieve my wish and smile as I say goodbye to this world. The Japanese government seems to be waiting for us to die. However, it is really an absurd attitude. Shouldn’t it resolve this issue and its wrong past quickly and start a new future with its Asian neighbor countries? ]]> 2021-03-15 02:56:07 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308753945 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308766281 Fifteen days after I arrived at the comfort station, I tried to run away from there. Even before getting several feet away, however, I was caught and beaten three times on my behind with a rifle and fell bleeding from my mouth.
The beaten wound on my bottom festered and I had such a high fever that I could not even lie on my back. Even with my wound, I was forced to keep receiving soldiers. The flesh on my bottom kept festering and got rotten. Only
after that, soldiers took me to hospital and cut the flesh off. I had three days off after the surgery. Three days later when the wound was not even healed and it was so painful that I could not lie down on my back, soldiers came to me. It was the hardest time. My behind was too painful to lie down, but I was forced to receive soldiers. It was so much pain. Every comfort woman in there wanted to run away, but after seeing that I was caught and beaten and suffered from the wounded, everybody just gave it up. Afterwards there was
no one who tried to escape. We did not learn of the liberation. There was a great fuss outside the comfort station, so we went outside and then was told of the liberation. I had no money to go back home. I thought I had to earn some money to go back
home. So I worked at a restaurant in front of the comfort station for a month and moved to work at another restaurant for a year. I saved money and then
came back home.
My mother died of despair over me when I was twenty seven. Mother told me that “you were just born in the wrong time, so you could not get married. I am
leaving you with a lot of burdens. I cannot say goodbye leaving you
unmarried.“ I never wanted to get married, so I have lived by myself. After living in Seoul for a while, I came to my father’s hometown, Ulsan, in 1980. My hometown is Pusan, but it just reminds me of my days of being a comfort woman, so I would not go there. My health condition is very bad now. I am
suffering from bad liver, high blood pressure, duodenal ulcer, arthritis, cyst on my right side, hypochondria, neurotic heart disease, etc.
I would like to be reborn as a woman. I would like to be reborn in such a great time as these days, stay with my parents to go to school, and get married to a
nice man to have children. Without even getting married, how miserable my life has been! Awake at night, I wonder. Who ruined my life like this? Why did we lose our country? Wondering these questions, I cannot go back to sleep. I still think of them. I never got married and have no children. So whenever I see people walking with their children on the street, my heart aches and I wonder, ‘people out there have children, but why is my life so miserable?
After ruining others lives like this, Japan still says that it cannot take any responsibility. It does not make sense. How could it not feel any guilt after ruining my life so much that I cannot get married? Until the day I die, I cannot forget what I have been through. Even after I die, I won’t be able to forget. I want to be compensated by the Japanese government for how my life has been ruined. ]]> 2021-03-15 03:02:21 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308766281 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308790792 A Japanese soldier got his bayonet and started peeling my father's skin while saying, tell us the truth - your child is part of the guerrillas with the owners of that empty house.

I saw my mother lying down with her skirt up, and there was a Japanese soldier on top of her. I ran. My two youngest siblings took little sticks and started hitting the soldiers. The Japanese soldiers then snatched away the sticks and bayoneted both of them.

 I was to be taken to the garrison where my two sisters were. Before we reached the garrison, he raped me. I thought that I was going to die because I was in so much pain.

If I could prevent the sun from setting, I would have because whenever night fell, life for us became miserable.

My husband also had two sisters who were taken by the Japanese. They said they would pay them, and they would only serve as maids to wash up and iron, but they never came home. He would always say to me, I don't think less of you. You're lucky because you came back alive. Everything the Japanese did to you throw out of your mind.]]> 2021-03-15 03:14:11 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308790792 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308827513 In her earlier testimonials, Lola Arroyo had recounted that in September 1944, Japanese soldiers had barged into the family home when her parents were in the fields. The soldiers dragged her and her brother off to their encampment at the Capiz Emmanuel Hospital. The soldiers had slaughtered the family's pig and forced her brother to carry it to the garrison, where he dropped it at the entrance. Seeing "no further use for him," Lola Arroyo said, the soldiers beat him to death in the yard.


]]> 2021-03-15 03:31:53 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308827513 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308838724 My experience as a woman in war is one of utter degradation, humiliation and unbearable suffering.

We weren’t ‘comfort women,’ It means something warm and soft and cuddly. We were Japanese war rape victims

Ruff-O'Herne was born on January 18, 1923, to a Dutch family in Bandung, the capital city of what is now West Java province in Indonesia. In 1942, the Japanese invaded the island, and she was interned in a Japanese prison as an enemy non-combatant.

All single girls from 17 years up had to line up in the compound. The officers … paced up and down the line, eying us up and down, looking at our figures and our legs, lifting our chins. They selected ten pretty girls. I was one of the ten. We were told to come forward and pack a small bag. The first things I put in my bag was my prayer book, my rosary beads and my Bible. I thought somehow these would keep me strong. And then we were taken away.

I curled myself into a corner like a hunted animal that could not escape. I made him understand that I was not afraid to die. He could kill me. I would not give myself to him. But I pleaded with him to allow me to say some prayers, and at that moment, I felt very close to God. While I was then praying, he started to undress himself, and I realized he had no intention of killing me. I would have been no good to him dead. He then threw me on the bed and ripped off all my clothes. He ran his sword all over my naked body and played with me as a cat would with a mouse. I still tried to fight him, but he thrust himself on top of me, pinning me down under his heavy body. The tears were streaming down my face as he raped me in the most brutal way. I thought he would never stop.

When I spoke out in Tokyo, the whole world was there, wanting to know the truth. They weren’t taking that much notice before because they were ‘only Asian comfort women.’ It’s terrible to say, but that’s the truth.

It’s something that’s been bottled up for 50 years. There have been times where I’ve been wanting to scream it out to the world and yet you can’t do it because it is too terrible. Then all of a sudden, phew, that’s it: it’s out and it’s a release and that’s good.


]]> 2021-03-15 03:37:14 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308838724 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308866340 2021-03-15 03:51:19 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308866340 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308873996 2021-03-15 03:55:49 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308873996 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308879723 2021-03-15 03:59:20 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308879723 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308888047 Only on display for one year from September 2020 - 2021]]> 2021-03-15 04:04:15 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308888047 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308894337 2021-03-15 04:07:48 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308894337 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308898624 2021-03-15 04:10:04 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308898624 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308905427 2021-03-15 04:13:27 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308905427 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308913340 2021-03-15 04:17:29 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308913340 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308951554 2021-03-15 04:34:27 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308951554 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308963977 2021-03-15 04:39:55 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308963977 martaferrari2022 https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308974260 2021-03-15 04:44:13 UTC https://padlet.com/martaferrari2022/2pgnebw2xk8809bj/wish/1308974260