Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the "Comfort Women" of World War II by Han Seong-won

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers is a beautiful tribute to some of World War II's most courageous women survivors: girls and young women enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Army to be sexually abused for years.

Between 1932 and 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army set up what they called "comfort stations" in war zones. With the outbreak of war in the Pacific during World War II, young girls were lured from home or forcibly taken and placed in these "comfort stations." It was not until 1991 that the Japanese government would even begin to acknowledge the existence of such places.

In Chapter 1 Testimony, Han Seong-won offers the testimonies of these women, called Grandmothers because many of the women are now elderly and grandmothers. The first Grandmother to publicly testify about her enslavement by the Japanese Imperial Army was Kim Hak-soon, who filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. As a result, women from many countries including the Philippines and the Netherlands testified. Eventually, August 14th was designated as "World Memorial Day for Comfort Women" to raise worldwide awareness of this tragic issue.

Grandmother Kim Bok-dong, a comfort woman, testified at the 1993 U.N. Human Rights Commission, and told her story in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Grandmother Kang Il-chul was forced to work in a "comfort station" in Chanchun of Jilin Province, China. Grandmother Jan Ruff O'Herne, one of the few non-Asians, was a sex slave on Java Island, Indonesia, at a comfort station called Chilhaejung. She sewed the names of all the girls who arrived there on a white hankerchief. Grandmother  Jan broke her silence about this hell in 1992 and testified in 2007 at a hearing in the United States House of Representatives.

In Chapter 2 Memories, many of the Grandmother remember specific things about their home and life, such a love of singing, or a special folk songs. Some forget their names or their memories. For other Grandmothers, memories bring pain and open old wounds. And some make new memories in new cities like New York. 

In Chapter 3 Travelling Together explores how others can travel the road with the Grandmothers, working for recognition and an apology by Japan, helping to bring honour and healing to these women. 

The author while visiting Paris, was struck by the fact that the city does not destroy things that are old. Instead it values them and the memories they bring. This led him to think about how eighty years after the war, people are suggesting that what happened to the Grandmothers be forgotten because it is in the past. 

The Grandmothers and what happened to them are remembered through their testimonies, scholarships to students, and in movies like "I Can Speak." And they are being helped by Japanese women like Misseuko Nobukawa who heard rumours about women and children at the front but didn't bother much about it. It was the testimony of Grandmother Kim Hak-soon that changed everything and made her ashamed to be Japanese. She now travels the journey of the Grandmothers, in particular Grandmother Lee Yong-soo for recognition and apology.

In 2019, over twenty thousand people came together in protest and to remember on August 14 in South Korea. The author participated in this protest, held on the 7th World Memorial Day for the "comfort women" of Japan. By not forgetting, the memory of the Grandmothers is honoured.

Discussion

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers is a moving tribute to the young girls and women, forced by the Japanese Imperial Army to be "sex slaves" for their soldiers as they rampaged through the Pacific. This crime against humanity was covered up by the Japanese government and military through the use of the euphemisms of "comfort women" and "comfort stations". In Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers, Han writes, "From the stance of the perpetrators, the term "comfort women" is a way to hide the Japanese Imperial Army's horrible deeds." He also notes that the term "humiliates the survivors and deepens their wounds." "Comfort women" is therefore enclosed in quotations as a form of resistance to this term which is used by survivors only because this is how Japanese historical records have labelled the women.

This graphic memoir is not an easy read because the subject matter is horrifying even though Han does not go into any of the details of what the Grandmothers experienced as young women. The exact number of young girls and women involved is not truly known, but it is believed that anywhere between fifty thousand and two hundred thousand women were "sex slaves". Many of the women were minors and many women were lured by promises of work. Women were taken from Korea, Philippines, China, Vietnam. Burma, Thailand, Malay,  and other countries including women from Australia and the Netherlands. They were repeatedly raped day and night, suffering horrific injuries and illness and many died of abuse or suicide. 

Han humanizes the young girls and women forcibly taken and abused so long ago. His portraits give faces to the "comfort women"; they are not simply a faceless, nameless group of survivors. They are real girls and women whose youth was lost in enslavement and abuse and whose trauma lives on with them. In fact, Han Seong-won's portrait of Grandmother Kim Bok-dong as a young girl and then as an elderly woman, especially highlights this reality. 

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers is a book of remembering, of resilience, of determination, of care and of hope. The hope is that as more and more people are informed about what happened, that the Japanese government will do the right thing and apologize to the Grandmothers with sincerity, ask for forgiveness and make restitution.

Book Details:

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the "Comfort Women" of World War II by Han Seong-won
Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing      2023
174 pp.