hankyoreh

Former comfort woman Lee Yong-su wipes away a tear at the wake for former comfort woman Kim Gun-ja

“I lived a hellish existence at the comfort station, facing an average of 20 Japanese soldiers every day, and sometimes as many as 40. I came to the US because I needed to hear an apology from Japan before I died. We don’t want money now. We want them to understand that there is a price to pay for the human rights violations and war crimes they committed.”

Kim Gun-ja, a Japanese military comfort women survivor who testified to the horrors of her experience at a Feb. 2007 hearing on the issue before the US House of Representatives, passed away from old age at around 8:04 am on July 23 at the House of Sharing in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. She was 91.

Kim is the third comfort woman survivor to pass away this year. The number of survivors has now dwindled to 37 of the 239 registered with the South Korean government.

Kim was born in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, in 1926. She lost both parents in her teens. At the age of 17, she was out for errands when she was taken to the Hunchun comfort station in China’s Jilin Province. She tried several times to escape, but failed and was forced to return to the comfort station. During one beating after attempting to resist, her left eardrum was ruptured, leaving her permanently deaf in that ear.

It was only after Korea’s Liberation from Japan in 1945 that she was able to cross the Tumen River and return home. After suffering a brush with death, she finally returned to her hometown and was reunited with the man who had promised to marry her before she was taken away to the comfort station. But objections from his family led the man to take his own life, and the couple’s daughter passed away five months later. Kim lived on her own until arriving at the House of Sharing in 1998.

Kim‘s hope was to receive a formal apology and just compensation from the Japanese government, the House of Sharing said. During her lifetime, Kim used support from the South Korean government and her own savings to donate 100 million won (US$89,400) to the Beautiful Foundation, 10 million won (US$8,940) to the House of Sharing, and 150 million won (US$134,100) in student scholarships to Toechon Catholic Church. In 2003, she applied to renounce her citizenship in protest after the South Korean government announced it would not disclose documents related to its 1965 talks with Japan.

Kim’s wake was held in the VIP room on the first basement level of Cha Hospital in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province. Her funeral procession is taking place on July 25. The burial site will be the House of Sharing memorial park. Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha and actor Yoo Ji-tae were among those who visited the wake on July 23 to express their condolences.

By Park Su-ji, staff reporter

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