hankyoreh

To mark International Memorial Day for ‘Comfort Women’ on Aug. 14, 2024, participants at a rally held at the Statue of Peace in Berlin’s Mitte borough lay flowers before the memorial honoring victims of wartime sexual violence. (Jang Ye-ji/Hankyoreh)

A German broadcaster reported that the mayor of a Berlin district pushing for the removal of a statue memorializing victims of the “comfort women” system of sexual slavery criticized South Korea and Japan for putting unwanted pressure on her about the issue, calling those interventions “unwarranted.”
 
However, controversy surrounding the issue continues to fester, with allegations surfacing over how a newfangled organization that recently applied to install a new memorial commemorating victims of sexual violence during conflict in place of the Statue of Peace has direct ties to the Mitte mayor.
 
German public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) reported Wednesday (local time) that Mitte Mayor Stefanie Remlinger criticized outside attempts to interfere in the debate concerning the Statue of Peace’s removal. According to RBB, the Japanese Embassy threatened to terminate Tokyo’s sister city agreement with Berlin if the statue remained, but the news outlet included a disclaimer saying that the Japanese Embassy has denied this. Concerns were also raised about South Korea’s behavior since a delegation of Democratic Party lawmakers, led by Choo Mi-ae, visited Germany on Sept. 4-7 to meet Remlinger.
 
Remlinger informed the RBB that she intends to write to both the Senate Chancellery and Foreign Office to say that she finds it “inappropriate to be put under pressure in this way by foreign diplomats and parliamentarians,” and that she asks the offices to fulfill their responsibilities to hold these discussions. The broadcaster also made it clear that Remlinger wants to avoid the impression that the Statue of Peace is being removed under pressure from the Japanese government.
 
“Remlinger is framing this issue as a diplomatic conflict between South Korea and Japan,” commented Nataly Jung-hwa Han, the chairperson of Korea Verband — the group that organized the Statue of Peace’s installation. “Japan was a colonial aggressor while South Korea was a victim, so trying to frame it so that the two countries are on equal footing while talking about their diplomatic positions is inherently flawed.”
 
The Mitte district had previously announced plans to erect a new memorial to commemorate all victims of wartime sexual violence, but that process itself has already proven controversial.

German daily newspaper Neues Deutschland (ND) reported Monday that the Berlin association Society against Sexual Violence in Conflict (SASVIC) had submitted an application to the district’s council to erect its own memorial. A fledgling association still without a fully functioning website, SASVIC was founded on June 21 — the day after the Mitte district council debated a resolution regarding the removal of the Statue of Peace. That date also follows Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner’s May meeting with Japan’s foreign minister in which he “held out the prospect of a solution to the controversial comfort women monument in Berlin,” according to a press readout. 
 
Korea Verband requested a meeting with Remlinger on July 19, promptly after SASVIC submitted its application for a new memorial, to ask that the Statue of Peace — known familiarly as “Ari” — remain. The district office informed ND that since the meeting was held before the main committee decided on whether a new memorial should be erected, Remlinger would not yet have known about SASVIC’s application.
 
However, some who took part in the discussion, including Han, denied that claim, saying that Remlinger had said that there was already an application for a memorial for victims of sexual violence that would be erected in April 2025.
 
ND also pointed out that one of the two chairs of the commission, Tilo Fuchs, is a representative of the Greens — Remlinger’s party — in the Mitte district. Ingrid Bertermann, a Mitte district councilor for the Left Party, informed ND that Remlinger and Fuchs have been part of the same faction of the Greens for a long time and are well-acquainted with each other. Daniel Walther, the other chairperson of the association, currently works for a consulting firm and used to work at an arms company that is now part of Airbus Defence and Space.
 
SASVIC intends to erect a memorial designed by UK artist Rebecca Hawkins. The memorial will commemorate not only the Korean victims of Japan’s “comfort women” system of sexual slavery but also represent 16 different groups of victims including Yazidis — the Kurdish religious minority — Rwandans and Ukrainians. Hawkins is also a board member of the UK association Justice for Lai Dai Han, an association for the victims who suffered from sexual violence at the hands of South Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War. 

“The memorial is not dedicated to a specific group of survivors, but to all groups worldwide,” Hawkins told the ND, adding that the statue is “completely independent of the Statue of Peace and the efforts to remove it.”

By Jang Ye-ji, Berlin correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]