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The Statue of Peace in Berlin’s Mitte borough on July 19, 2024. (Jang Ye-ji/Hankyoreh)

The Japanese government’s efforts to disrupt civic projects led by both Koreans and Germans to educate people about the history of the “comfort women” and wartime sexual violence are slowly bearing fruit. German politicians have issued orders to tear down a Statue of Peace in Berlin’s Mitte borough, erected four years ago, by the end of next month. Now, new reports show that this past April, the German government terminated government funding for educational programs on comfort women coordinated by a human rights organization led by ethnic Koreans. It turns out Japan had a hand in this decision as well. 

After its humiliating diplomatic disaster in authorizing the registration of the Sado gold mines — a site of Korean forced labor by Japan — as a World Heritage, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration needs to take a clear stance in opposition to the Japanese government when it comes to the brutal war crimes perpetrated by Japanese soldiers in the form of sexual violence against women. 

German public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) reported on Saturday that Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner influenced a decision last April to cut funding to the tune of 87,000 euros (US$95,000) to a “comfort women” education program on sexual violence coordinated by Korea Verband. 

RBB quoted an anonymous source who claimed that Wegner contacted a member of the committee charged with the final decision on the program’s funding. According to the source, Wegner pressed the committee member to cut funding, saying that the program could cause friction between the German and Japanese governments. In doing so, the Japanese government succeeded in terminating the activities of a local civic group seeking to educate the German people about the “comfort women” by putting pressure on local German politicians. 

Since Korean and German civic groups banded together to erect a Statue of Peace in Berlin’s Mitte borough in September 2020, the Japanese government has worked tirelessly to have the statue removed. Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio pressed for the statue’s removal during his meeting with German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz in April 2022. During his summit with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa this past May, Wegner strongly hinted at the statue’s removal by stating that he’d “held out the prospect of a solution to the controversial comfort women monument in Berlin.” On July 12, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported that the city government of Berlin had requested that civic groups remove the statue sometime after Sept. 28. 

“I never thought that the Japanese government would interfere with educational programs,” said Nataly Jung-hwa Han, the chairwoman of Korea Verband. 

Since around 2014, Japanese papers like the Sankei Shimbun have referred to the comfort women issue as part of a larger “history war,” calling on the Japanese government to take a hard-line stance. In December 2015, the Yoon administration declared that it would no longer fund the installation of any Statue of Peace monuments overseas, essentially abetting Japan’s distortion of history by vowing to remain silent. The Yoon administration needs to stand on the side of global citizens who are trying to educate people on the truth about war crimes. It also needs to block the Japanese government’s efforts to distort and whitewash history. 

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