Interview with Kim Hak Soon in August 1991
Interview with Kim Hak Soon, a sixty-eight former Comfort Woman, who testified in public for the first time in Korea that she was forced to serve Japanese solders sexually. She was born in Manchuria and sold by her stepfather to a Japanese military in 1941 when she was sixteen.
Q. What made you give this difficult testimony?
A. The direct motive was Lee Mang Hee that I met at the welfare work force. But I’ve been thinking that I should reveal it sometime. I watched it carefully whenever there were any news about Comfort Women on TV. I was wondering how they would report it. My heart throbs even when I see Ijanggee, the Japanese nation flag, and I feel suffocated even by the word comfort. I’d wanted to release it. I feel unburdened now.
Q. How did your stepfather trade you in the Japanese military? Could you tell us the detail?
A. My father passed away when I was young. I was maltreated because people believed my father died due to my bad luck. When my mother got married again, I was adopted at the age of 14. My stepfather sent me a gisaeng school, female entertainer school, to learn music and dancing. He took me to Manchuria with another stepdaughter to do business using us. We thought we would become a gisaeng when he treaded us. But we were sold as Comfort Women to a Japanese platoon located in Northern China. I never knew that I would become a plaything for Japanese solders.
Q. Where did the Japanese military take you and how many Comfort Women were there?
A. I followed wherever Japanese solders went because I was so young. I didn’t have discretion even to remember the name of troops or the commander. We were taken to an empty Chinese house located in front of the troops and I saw three other Korean girls. At least I was relived to see them. I didn’t know their Korean names but they were called by their Japanese name, Miyako, Sadako, Sijiae. Five Korean girls became Comfort Women there and the oldest one was 22. Others were 17, 18, 18 years old and I was sixteen. So I was the youngest.
Q. Could you tell us about your life there more in detail?
A. We lived an empty Chinese place as all Chinese left because of the Japanese military. During the daytime, we delivered ammunitions, cooked, did laundry and worked as nurses. During the nighttime, we were forced to serve Japanese solders. If we rejected to do it, even a little, we were beaten by Sijiae or pulled in hair and dragged naked. We lived on the food from the military but we were never paid. We never saw a penny. I remember that a private paid 1 Won 50 Jeon, and a officer, who stayed all night with a Comfort Woman, paid 8 Won but Sijiae must have taken all the money.
Q. You said the Japanese military was a platoon. How many solders were there and when did they come ?
A. I think that there were about three hundred solders. Because it was on the front line, they took vacation and came in groups.
Q. Could you tell us how you remember your life there? How did you manage to run away from it?
A. I can’t put my life there in words. I tried not to think of my life there because it wasn’t a human being’s life. It was like a public toilet for the Japanese solders. I get frightened even now. When solders dashed to me…. I bit my lips. I ran away but got caught. I shudder at the thought of it. I lived that life for the summer so I think I was there for about four or five months. One night I ran away with a Korean man’s help when he came by the troops for his business. Every girl got crazy to get his help on that day. They must have thought they could run away with his help. He had a wife in Korea and did business to sell silver coins. I followed him and survived in China. After the 1945 Liberation of Korea, I came to Seoul. I suffered a lot but I was glad to be back.
Q. You lost your husband, one son and one daughter all by accidents. How has your life been?
A. I managed myself as a housemaid or peddler. Now the village office gives me 10 kg rice every month and I make 30,000 Won doing welfare work.
Q. What would you like to say to the Korean government and the Japanese government?
A. The Japanese should admit the existence of Comfort Women and show repentance. The Korean government should demand an official apology from the Japanese government and compensation. I’d like to see Miyako and Sadako most of all. I wouldn’t have any more wish if more women like me report it and we try together to reveal the crimes that the Japanese military committed.
** The translation of this interview is based on the article by Women News issued on August 30, 1992.
