My name is Kim Koon Ja. I was born in Pyongchang, Gangwon province in 1926. I became an orphan when I was 14 and my aunt arranged for me to become a foster daughter of Choi Chul Ji, a colonial police officer.
In the March of 1942, when I was 16, my foster father told me to go "somewhere" to make some money. He did not tell me where to go. If I didn't think I could make any money, then I could come back. I was wearing my regular black skirt and green shirt with my black shoes. I did not carry any luggage and followed a Korean man wearing a military uniform. I thought I was being sent for an errand.
I realized that it was not the case as I boarded a train -- a freight car. There were seven other girls and another man in a military uniform. The men did not have any badge of rank nor arms but wearing military caps without an ensign. Since I did not know the other girls I did not talk to them. I was sitting on the floor of the freight car. There were some soldiers on other cars. I did not know where I was going. When the train stopped and we got off, a Japanese soldier with a rank badge was waiting for us by a truck. The soldiers got on the truck and put us on the back.
After driving for a while, we stopped in front of a house that looked like an old inn. I was later told that the name of the town was Hunchun. The next evening, a Japanese officer came. He spoke something in Japanese which I did not understand. I did not know what was happening until he began to rape me. I refused and he hit my face so hard my eardrum split. From that point on, I was raped by twenty soldiers a day, sometimes forty. There was a soldier with a dagger who watched over us and stabbed us when we did not listen to him. I still have scars from that time.
Many soldiers did not want to wear the protection. When we asked them to wear it, they beat us. Girls got pregnant and got STDs. When a girl was pregnant, the owner arranged for an abortion. I also had an abortion once. Japanese people insists that we had gone there voluntarily to make money, but that is not true. I did not know where I was going and was forced to become a comfort woman. And I never received any money as well.
The Hunchun was not the front lines and the soldiers were relatively less violent. When the conflict increased, we were sent to a town called Kokashi. It was the front lines where there were no civilians and the soldiers were facing life-and-death risks. There, we were raped by stressed, violent soldiers.
Then the war was over. We did not know that war was over, but there were no sound of gunfire anymore and the owner told us to leave on our own free will. We were not given any money or any transportation. Seven of us walked to the border. It took us fifteen days to arrive at the Baekdu mountain (in North Korea) and we fed ourselves with vegetables on the ground. We had to cross the Duman river near the border to survive. We held on to each other, hand to hand and crossed the river. Unfortunately, one of us misstepped and fell into the river. We could not save her.
There, I took a train to my hometown. I did not have any place to go even in my hometown. I never wanted to go to my foster father's house. I hated him because he did not opt me out of the comfort women draft when he had a power to do so as a Japanese colonial police officer. I ended up working in a hostess bar. There, I met my old boy friend. Before I was drafted, we loved each other but his family did not accept me because I was an orphan. They forced him to marry another woman. When I met him again, he told me that, after I was drafted, he could not forget me, and applied for a military draft. We ended up living together. However, he could not handle the stress that his family continued to give him and committed suicide.
People blamed me for his death and I was forced to leave my hometown. Now pregnant, I left for Seoul. I first worked at a hostess bar then found a job as a housekeeper. During that time, I gave birth to a child who died 5 months later. All the money I made as a housekeeper, I spent seeking religious healing. I really wanted to know why fate has been so cruel to me. I have been to the Buddhist temples for 30 years, and World Orthodox Church for 8 years. Recently I started to go to a Catholic church. The social service office there introduced me to the House of Sharing (a home for former comfort women), where I now reside.
For 62 years since the end of the war, I had to live a tough life with a scar in my heart. However, the Japanese government does not want to say anything about their act of barbarity. They even say that we went voluntarily. I believe that the officers in the Japanese government are fathers and mothers - would they act the same way if their daughters were in my situation? We were dragged there when we were young and our youth was robbed. We are able to mention our painful past only now, when we have became this old.
The Japanese government should not forget their crimes. They have to remember it forever. They should officially apologize and provide reparations. Maybe they are waiting until we all die of age, but I will not die that easily. I do not understand why they cannot repent themselves and it must be up to people in America to write this historic and important resolution.
I regret that I did not have any chance to study because I was an orphan. So I donated my one hundred million won (estimated at US $100,000) that I received from the Korean government to a charity foundation. I do not need the money now. If the Japanese government finally provides reparations, I will donate that money as well. But, what I want is the Japanese government admitting their crimes by this action of official reparations. If this does not happen, we are not just talking about the past, but also the future. Governments must learn that there is a price to pay for such human rights violations and war crimes. If not, they will continue to repeat it today. There are nine of us living in a "House of Sharing" with me. We are all in our eighties. Eighteen comfort women passed away last year. We do not have enough time. We sincerely recognize the U.S. Congress for caring about the cause we have waged and the unbearable pain we have all carried. My wish is that the resolution passes as soon as possible. And that it will send a strong message to the Japanese government to acknowledge their crimes and provide official redress including an apology and reparations.