Time_Final

Kimiko Kaneda stories from a former comfort woman (1921 - 2005)

I was 14 years old.. My father was arrested by the police for not visiting Japanese shrines. I was busy caring for my younger brothers and keeping the house, and had no idea of going to school. My father could speak Japanese well and told a lie that from now on he was go- ing to visit Japanese shrines with his followers. Liberated, he went home. He cured the burn on his leg which the police inflicted. Then the police came to arrest him again. It was 4 o’clock in the morn- ing. Father was praying in the church. I sprang up and ran to the church. “Daddy, run away. The police are here again.” Close by was a Japanese village. He stopped praying and fled through the Japanese village.

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나는 울지 않을 수 없었다... all were weeping. How did I feel? I felt as if we were taken here to be killed. No one talked, all were weeping. 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 shout- ed “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. He was taken away by the military police and I was taken to the infirmary. My clothes were soaked with blood.

When the soldiers came back from the battlefields, as many as 20 men would come to my room from early morning. They rounded up little girls still in school. The soldiers made Chinese laborers lay straw in the trenches and the girls were put in there. There was no bedding... underneath was earth. There was no electricity at that time, only oil lamps, but they weren’t even given a lamp. They cried in the dark “Mummy, it hurts! Mummy, I’m hungry!” We wanted to go and give them our left- over food, but there were a lot of sick and disturbed people in the trenches. Some of them had TB. I was scared they might pull me in to the trenches, and I didn’t want to go there. I could have gone if I had a lamp. When someone died the girls got scared and began to cry. Then everyone in the trenches was poisoned and they closed up the trench. They dug another trench next to it.

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 had learned to accept suffering. I also learned to forgive. If Je- sus Christ could forgive those who crucified Him, I thought I could also find it in my heart to forgive those who had abused me. Half a century had passed. Maybe my anger and resentment were no longer as fresh. Telling my story has made it easier for me to be reconciled with the past. But I am still hoping to see justice done before I die.