I am Kim Dae-il, born on July 7, 1916, in Sariwon, Hwang-hae Province.  I vividly remember the experience I suffered as a “comfort woman” although it was such a long time ago.

I remember the time when we traveled from Korea to Shimonoseki, Japan.  Mr. Fukuda, a Japanese military first lieutenant, said, “This is Japan.  From now on, you must not speak Korean.  Your new and only name is “Shizue.”  The word “comfort women” is used nowadays, but it was called teishintai, or volunteer corps, in those days.  So, forty of us “volunteers” were taken to Manchuria.  Each of us was assigned a number for identification, and a small space of four feet by six with one tatami, a Japanese straw mattress, for the floor.  These cubicles were built by the military construction corps.

So we were made sex slaves and were forced to service 40 to 50 soldiers each day.  One time a soldier sat on top of the stomach of a pregnant “comfort woman” who was almost full term.  Apparently this act induced labor.  As a baby started to appear, he stabbed both the infant and the mother and exclaimed, “Hey, these senjing (dirty Koreans) are dead.  Come and see.”

It was a common practice for soldiers to manhandle us, but the soldiers of the Sixth Army Division from Kyushu were the worst.  They would frequently beat us.  One day a drunken soldier walked into my cubicle, stuck his bayonet on the tatami mat, and yelled at me, “You must have heard of the Sixth Division.  I am the one. I will kill you if you do not do as I say.”

Some of them were too impatient to wait for their turns for sex.  They would yell, “Hey, hurry up, and come out now.”  A few even intruded into my cubicle and tried to mount me before the previous soldier could remove himself from me.

I often fainted after servicing so many soldiers, 50 or so.  The next soldier in line came in, and holding a lighted cigarette close to my nose, made me inhale the smoke to wake me up.  He then struck the lit cigarette into my vagina, spreading my two legs apart.  He laughed and clapped his hands for having done this.

One time another drunken soldier came in and continued drinking in my cubicle.  He then stabbed the lower part of my body and shouted, “Hey, this senjing (a dirty Korean) is dying.”  He then screamed, “Kono yaro!” (Damn you!) and stabbed a few more times on my lower abdomen.  I became crippled for life from these wounds.

Interviewed in Pyongyang, North Korea, August, 1992

Source:
Schellstede, Sangmie Choi, ed.  Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military.  New York: Holmes and Meier, 2000.