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Human rights groups in Berlin hold a protest calling for the permanent installation of the Statue of Peace in response to protests by visiting right-wing groups from Korea. (Nam Eun-joo/The Hankyoreh)

A small disturbance broke out in front of a statue commemorating victims of the Japanese military’s comfort women system in Berlin’s Mitte borough on Sunday morning.

Korea Verband, the Berlin-based civic group that erected the statue and has been protecting it since, held a counter-rally on Sunday after a group from South Korea calling itself “End Comfort Women Fraud” held a protest demanding the statue’s removal.

As the groups confronted each other with only a 5-meter road separating them, German protesters drew attention for standing in the front rows of the rally criticizing the Korean far-right group.

Those present that day included activists from human rights and civic groups such as the Berlin Japanese Women’s Association, Grannies against the Right, and the German feminist group Courage, all of which have histories of organizing to raise awareness of the comfort women issue in Germany.

Each time the South Korean far-right protesters shouted that the stories of comfort women are lies, the protestors on the other side waved signs that read “history should not be denied” and photos of former comfort women such as Park Young-shim.

There were also Japanese protesters there with their friends holding signs saying, “Voices denying war crimes should disappear.”

“You are guilty of a great crime. You are insulting the Republic of Korea,” the South Korean far-right protesters cried. Every time they did, Angelika Krueger, a 65-year-old activist from Berlin with Grannies against Right, waved her hand to dismiss them in response.

“They come from Korea and tell us to get rid of the statue as if they’re the Japanese government themselves, but as citizens living in Berlin, we want the statue to remain here as a symbol of peace that signals how sexual violence and war crimes must never again be repeated,” Krueger said.

On June 26, Joo Ok-soon of the ROK Mothers Unit, Lee Woo-youn of the Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research, and Kim Byung-heon of the Korean History Textbook Research Institute hold a protest calling for the Statue of Peace in Berlin to be torn down under the name “Stop Comfort Women Fraud.” (Nam Eun-joo/The Hankyoreh)

The Statue of Peace was installed in the Mitte borough of Berlin in 2020 and has been subject to various crises ever since, including threats of removal due to protests from the Japanese government. However, on June 16, the Green Party and the Left Party of Germany passed a permanent retention resolution with the majority opinion at the district council, raising the prospect that the statue will become an official monument in Berlin.

Johanna Engelmann, a 25-year-old at the protests who came to know about the comfort women issue during coursework in the Korean studies program at the Free University of Berlin, said that the comfort women issue is not something unique to Korean history.

“Germans understand this in the context of universal human rights issues,” she said, adding that “it is extremely difficult to understand the actions of the far-right protesters from South Korea who deny historical facts in public places.”

While German police and others were dispatched to keep an eye on the rally, the End Comfort Women Fraud group, which consists of four people including Joo Ok-soon, raised donations by streaming the protest on YouTube. The group has reportedly formally registered to hold rallies twice a day in front of the statue until the end of June.

By Nam Eun-joo, special contributor in Berlin

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