I am now 73 years old. But my father registered my birth at the time that he registered the birth of my younger sibling, the way they used to in the old days. So my registered age is 68. I am born in Puyo, Chungnam Province.
My maternal and paternal grandparents arranged my parents' marriage before my father was born. So when my father was 11 years old and my mother was 16, they got married. My father went to Japan to study political science at Meiji University with the support of his parents-in-law. Unfortunately he contracted an incurable disease while in Japan. He soon returned to Korea and spent all his money trying to cure it.
When I was 11 years old, I had to leave home because my family was very poor. I was sent to be the foster daughter of a man in Hamheung. I first stayed at the home of this man's concubine, and she was very jealous of me. She did not even let me sleep in a bedroom, so I had to sleep in the kitchen. When my foster father found out, he took me to his home in Hamheung. That was when I was 13 years old. I lived there until I was 18. That's when I was drafted by the Japanese.
There were three birth daughters in my foster father's family. One, older than I and two, younger. When the Japanese sent us a draft notice for girls, who was going to go? The older daughter had been accepted to a good university in Japan. Everybody was crying. I told them I would go instead of the other daughters.
So I went. I wasn't kidnapped, I was officially drafted. I dressed nicely and went to the Hamheung train station. I first went to the township office and got an official stamp on the draft notice. Family members came to the train station to see me off. At the train station, I saw Japanese military police officers exchanging some kind of booklet, which contained lists of girls who had been drafted.
About 40 of us drafted girls rode a train for two or three days. We could not tell time because the windows were covered with tar paper. Eventually we arrived at Kilim, Manchuria. It was February and freezing. The soldiers loaded us in dirty trucks, drove us for 4 to 5 hours on an extremely bumpy ride on a rocky road until we arrived at a deserted place. None of the girls knew where we were or what we were to do there. All the girls thought that we were going to work at some kind of a factory. But when the guards finally let us off the truck, we saw only Japanese soldiers on horses and motor vehicles in a vast Manchurian field.
They put 20 girls in each barrack. There was nothing in that barrack except for a small stove. We were freezing and starving. The guards finally gave us food-a little bit of rice, miso soup and daikon radish pickles on a tiny tray. But I could not eat it. I just drank some soup. After that, a Japanese soldier brought us tattered blankets. They smelled so bad, I was nauseated. It was now much too cold to sleep, so we put all the blankets on the floor and all twenty of us went underneath. We held onto each other. Some of the girls were crying. As I was about to fall asleep, thanks to the warmth of the others, the sun rose.
The first day began with the Japanese blowing trumpets for breakfast. So I thought I would eat whatever was there, since they would send me off to the factory that day. But it was the same rice, soup and radish, I was so tired and frightened that I still couldn't eat it. So I went back to the barracks and waited for them to send me to the barracks. They could not possibly dump me there, I thought. So I sat and waited. The other girls were combing their hair and getting ready to leave, too. A Japanese officer and several soldiers came to see us. They looked at us, numbered us, and left.
The Japanese had made all Koreans change their names. So instead of "Hwang," I was called "Haruko Nagaki." As I sat waiting for their instructions, a Japanese soldier called out my name. I grabbed my bag, but he told me to leave it. He took me to an officer's room, which had a tatami (straw mat) floor and a wooden bed. I was 18 years old then.
My long hair was still braided, as it was customary at that time for a maiden-unmarried girl. There were few Korean men to marry at that time because they had all been drafted for labor or into the Japanese Army. Only the disabled and the retarded were left behind in Korea. That was the reason why I was still not married and eighteen. (Girls got married very young in those days.)
The officer who had come earlier to look at the girls came into this room, took off his jacket, and hung it on the wall with its inside out. The Japanese knew that some of the girls including me could read, so this gesture meant that he did not want me to know his name. I became worried about what was to happen next. He asked me whether I was so and so, if I was Korean, and where I came from. I told I came from Hamhueng, which was called Kanko in Japanese. I spoke some Japanese since I had some schooling. He nodded his head.
The officer told me that from then on I had to obey him, or I would be killed. He said that there were five orders to obey. If I missed any one of them, I would be less than dead. I asked him what those orders were. I still had absolutely no idea what he was about to do. I just told him that I hoped one of the orders was for me to work at a factory. He told me that I was not going to any factory. So I asked him what his orders were. He told me to follow his instructions. Then he told me to take off my clothes.
It was like a bolt from the sky. My long braided hair clearly showed that I was a virgin. How was it possible that I could take off my clothes in front of a man? I was dressed neatly in hanbok, traditional Korean dress. I told him no. He old me then I would be killed. If I refused to obey his orders, I would be killed. I explained to him that it was not possible for me, a virgin, to undress in front of man. He insisted that was his order. I told him I could not do so even if it meant death. He repeated his order, and I repeated my refusal.
Then he grabbed my skirt and tore it at the seams. He ordered me again, but I was so shocked I just sank into the floor. He grabbed me and stood me up, then tore at my knitted underskirt. He pulled it so hard that I fell to the floor, but it would not rip. Then he grabbed his knife and cut my underskirt and underpants. I was totally exposed. I was so shocked, I just fainted. I did not know hoe long I was unconscious. When I woke up, I found myself lying in a pool of blood. I could not get up for a week afterwards. I was so sick that I could not even drink water.
The guard who took me to the officer came by several times to check on me. After about ten days, the guard called me in again. The same officer demanded to hear whether I would still disobey his orders. I told him I did not understand his kind of order and his kind of factory. I told him if he just sent me to a real factory, I would so whatever work they gave me. I would work real hard. Then he told me that the factory was right here. I ask him what kind of factory it was, and he laughed and said it was a baby-making factory. I could not believe my ears.
I don't remember much about what happened after that, I cannot say how I managed to survive over four years of hell. But since I could read and write, my situation was a little better than most of the girls, and I survived.
I saw so many deaths, so much illness. Girls arrived; they got sick and pregnant. The Japanese injected us with so many drugs like "#606" that we would have miscarriages. Sometimes our bodies would swell up like balloons but the Japanese did not care. They would line up for sex day after day. They did not care whether the girls were bleeding or what. They would still force sex on them.
Beginning in 1944, we did not receive supplies. No soap, no clothes, nothing. Sanitary napkins were scarce. We stole from each other and sometimes used worn-out leggings that soldiers threw in the trash. The soldiers did not like this. They beat us whenever we were caught stealing these leggings. Two months before the war ended, even the food supplies stopped. One meal in two days was a good one.
On the day of liberation, I did not know what was going on. Suddenly, there were no sounds of horses, motor vehicles or soldiers. I was so hungry so I went out to the kitchen to drink some water. There I saw clothes that the Japanese had abandoned. One last Japanese soldier stood in the kitchen. He asked me, "Why haven't you left? Your country is liberated, and my country is sitting on a fire." Because of the atomic bomb his country was burning like hell, he told me, and I'd better leave quickly. He had dome only to fetch his bag. He told me to hurry and get out as soon as possible.
So I left the barracks on the evening of the 15th of August. I walked. On the road I picked up abandoned clothes and shoes to wear. I begged for food. I was alone and walked all the way to the 38th parallel, American soldiers sprayed me with so much DDT, all the lice fell off me.
I was December 2nd when I finally reached Seoul. I cannot begin to describe the pain and hardship I went through afterwards. The Japanese gave me diseases, and I bled so much that I lost my uterus. It's been over 35 years now, and I am alive only because of penicillin.
What I want to say today is that it would not be enough even if they gave me half of Japan to make up for what they did to me. There is no use telling them to give me back my youth. The only thing I want now is that Japan show true repentance and act accordingly.
Interviewed in Seoul, November 2, 1994
Source:
Schellstede, Sangmie Choi, ed. Comfort Women Speak: Testimony
by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military. New York: Holmes and Meier,
2000.