뉴스레터

For a long time, sexual violence during war was considered a daily and inevitable situation in war. And unlike other victims of violence, the victim did not have ‘the authority of the victim’. The ‘comfort women’ for the Japanese military are evaluated as the occasion that changed this situation. After Kim Hak-soon's public testimony, the existence of victims due to the Japanese sexual slavery system became visible in East Asia, and their words and memories settled in the public sphere. People sought international support and solidarity to draw out the Japanese government's apology and compensation. In the process, the memory of the 'comfort women' became a representation of victims of sexual violence during the war in the transnational memoryscape. However, the globalization of 'comfort women' memories accompanied the globalization of the East Asian memory war. And this has been developed through the establishment of a 'The statue of peace' outside the South Korean territory for the past decade. The latest example is The Statue of Peace, which appeared in Berlin in September 2020.

The Statue of Peace in Berlin

Berlin was not the first place to have this happening in Germany. The Statue of Peace was built at Stadtgarten Freiburg in the spring of 2016, at the Nepal Himalaya Pavillon(Wisent) in 2017, at the Dorothee-Sölle-Haus(Hamburg) and the Bonn Women's Museum in 2018, and at the LWL Industrial Museum Zollern(Dortmund) in 2019. Over the past few years, Germany has been the stage for the memory politics and history war between Korea and Japan over the construction of the Status of Peace. Koreans believed that Germany had exemplary liquidated its Nazi-related past, so they did not understand that the construction of the Statue of Peace was a problem in Germany. Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands and Die Grünen suggested joining United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121(H.Res. 121, resolution about ‘comfort women’). But in early 2012, the German Federal Parliament showed a callous pragmatism attitude that rejected the proposal. The superficial reason was that it was harsh for Japan, which is suffering from the Great East Japan Earthquake. But it was a diplomatic consideration that the Japanese government should not be damaged. Members of conservative parties argued that sex crimes during the war were not only Japan's problems, but that it was inappropriate for Germany to intervene in this difficult discussion as a third party.

A country that liquidated its past 'exemplarily'?

For a long time, 'liquidation of the past' to Germans meant dealing with Nazi crimes, and after the 1990s, East German dictatorship was added to it. Colonial crime is another problem. The passive attitude toward Herero and Nama Genoside by the German Empire in the early 20th century contrasts with the aggressiveness of dealing with the Nazi and East German past. In May 2021, the German government announced plans for apology and compensation after a long consultation with the Namibia government. But the apology was issued through the media, not through an official statement, and it avoided legal liability. And they made it clear that the 1.1 billion to be paid over the next 30 years is development aid, not compensation. The affected tribes accused the situation of 'a drop of water on a hot stone'.

And the Nazi state and the army have not been recognized and compensated for the damage caused by the sexual slavery system during the war. This is a story about socially maladjusted girls and women quarantined in camps under the name of protecting good morals or manners, eradicating prostitution, women in occupied territories forced into a house of tolerance of systematically operated by troops, for the purpose of protecting soldiers from venereal disease and homosexuality, female prisoners who were taken to house of tolerance run by the SS to enhance the labor productivity of male prisoners, victims of sexual violence by German forces in eastern Europe, including Poland, and victims of sexual violence by coalition forces in Eastern Europe and Germany after the end of the war.

Mishandling of Victims

In Germany, the subject is only covered in the Academy and public history, but there is no meaningful social discussion; there is no recognition and compensation for the damage, of course. The story was discovered thanks to the study of memories activated in the 1990s and the study of women's history actively conducted in the 1980s under the stimulus of the feminist movement. The achievements of German women's history research were to explore cooperation with German women and the Nazis, and to declare that they were victims of population policy and reproduction violence under the racism, as well as beneficiaries/violators. There was no place for the Victim German Women.

Poland and the Czech Republic were occupied alternately by German and Soviet troops; they were victims of violence committed by both countries. But the Cold War and the Post-Cold War have drawn historical limits on liquidation of the past. The victims of forced labor and sexual violence by the Nazis during the Cold War were treated as traitor. In the post-Cold War era, the liquidation of Stalin's crimes overwhelmed Nazi crimes. The interest of the Eastern European women's movement is the immediate reality of women's life and labor, not a distant past.

Beyond the Territoriality of Memory of ‘Comfort Women’

The issue of 'comfort women' in Korea is understood as two axes: Nationalism and Postcolonial and universal women's human rights. But in reality, the public reacts enthusiastically when appealing to anti-Japanese sentiments. Experience and memory of sexual violence is difficult to speak and visualize. The narrative of the victim of the comfort women led to it being settled in the public sphere. Through this success, the memory of the comfort women has gone to the global space.

According to people studying memory, memory crosses the border in the era of globalization. And it does not hang on to the framework of territory or group with its own vitality. It acquires and is newly born with different meanings depending on who, in some place, how it connects with other memories. In this sense, the situation in which 'the status of peace' is built around the world will be a test board that measures the possibility/impossibility of solidarity beyond the territoriality of memories of ‘comfort women’. The stories and memories of the comfort women are considered to have made it possible to speak of victims who have been sexually assaulted during the war and pioneered the path of change. Could this move toward global solidarity in the future?