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Japan objects to Union City’s plan for comfort women memorial

July 24, 2014
A memorial commemorating victims of sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers in World War II is under construction in Union City, New Jersey.

A memorial commemorating victims of sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers in World War II is under construction in Union City, New Jersey.

The Japanese government sent a request note of cancellation to Union City in New Jersey regarding a comfort women memorial that is due to be revealed Aug. 4 in Liberty Plaza.

The note was sent to Union City Mayor Brian Stack through Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The city, which announced earlier in July that it would install the memorial commemorating former comfort women victimized by Japanese soldiers during World War II, has not responded to the request and declined to reveal the contents of the letter.

It said it has consulted its attorneys, who said the installation of the memorial is not unlawful in any way. The Union City memorial was commissioned by the city without request from the Korean community there, although it was supported by Union City Philharmonic Artistic Director Kim Ja-hye and by the Korean American Civic Empowerment.

The city plans to proceed with all events planned around the memorial, which includes the unveiling ceremony, a concert and a theater play.

The ceremony will be attended by former Korean comfort women Lee Ok-soon and Kang Il-chool.

The memorial is a copperplate set on rock dedicated to “hundreds of thousands of women and girls from Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Indonesia, who were forced into sexual slavery by the armed forces of Imperial Japan before and during World War II.”

10 Comments

  1. moguro fukuzo

    July 25, 2014 at 4:59 PM

    Why don’t you build a statue of Korean comfort women served US troops in Korea?
    http://www.howitzer.jp/korea/page24.html

    Reply

  2. Brent

    July 26, 2014 at 6:47 AM

    With the most recent complaint filed by Korean women against the Korean government shouldn’t this statue represent all women who have suffered the same fate and are still suffering today? If the most recent claims are true then it does support the Japanese stance that Korean business owners assisted greatly in setting up the comfort women stations. Roughly 200,000 women are estimated to have worked these stations. However, over 1,000,000 Korean women suffered the same condition by their own government since the end of WWII. Honestly I love both countries of Japan and Korea, but if you really look at this situation today it is about money and political postering.

    Reply

  3. moguro fukuzo

    July 26, 2014 at 11:42 AM

    Why don’t you Americans build a statue of Korean comfort women served US troops in Korea?
    http://www.howitzer.jp/korea/page24.html

    Reply

  4. moguro fukuzo

    July 28, 2014 at 4:31 AM

    Message to Americans

    By building those memorials, you are insulting us.

    What is the basis of 200,000 young girls forcibly taken to the brothels by the Japanese Army or governmental officials? Do you have sufficient evidences for such defamation? Have you ever heard the other side of the story and reached the conclusion?

    How can you read “forcibly taken away by Korean brokers/brothel operators” as “forcibly taken away by the Japanese Army/government officials? This is what you call “blame-shifting.”

    You are injuring the reputation of our ancestors.
    You are injuring the reputation of today’s Japanese people.
    You are injuring the reputation of unborn future Japanese.

    Especially, you are making us lose our faith to American democracy and trust in the common sense of yours.

    Reply

  5. moguro fukuzo

    July 28, 2014 at 3:28 PM

    After the WWII, the US 8th Army, which comprised 230,000 men, landed from the port of Yokohama, where I live today. You can easily surmise what had happened after that. A great number of victorious army men, all males at their peak of reproductive activities, landed upon the war-torn devastated towns where all people were hungry searching for food every day. I have many terrible stories recorded in our history. In this respect, the Japanese know better about the real face of the war than anybody else. We endured so much for the long period of ignominious post-war days. You say we are the sons of war criminals for nearly 70 years! If you were Japanese, how do you feel? Just imagine for a moment how you will feel. Koreans are still accusing us of “atrocities” that have nothing to do with today’s Japanese except that we are the sons and daughters of brave army men who fraught a hopeless war.

    Although the Japanese have refrained from telling such terrible stories of rapes, robbery and murders, considering that the US is our important ally. However, if Americans continue to build comfort women memorials in the United Sates such as this, taking part of anti-Japan smear campaign of Koreans, soiling the reputation of our ancestors, us and our children, I will expose those terrible stories to the whole world spending the rest of my life.

    Reply

  6. moguro fukuzo

    July 28, 2014 at 3:37 PM

    We Japanese know what really happened. Parents sold their daughters to “indentured prostitution” and it was the whoremongers who had taken away those young girls.

    (Indentured prostitution was the system by which the parents got hefty sum of advance money and the daughter repays the advance money by working at brothels. This system was widely prevalent in East Asia before and during the WWII.)

    Reply

  7. moguro fukuzo

    July 28, 2014 at 3:45 PM

    At least, Koreans should present third-party witness accounts of forcible abduction of young girls by the Japanese soldiers and/or officials before accusing us and Americans should verify the correctness of such witness accounts before blindly believe what they say and build such memorials in your town. Surely, as fathers, brothers and people in neighborhood should have witnessed such mass kidnapping of “hundreds of thousands of young girls” there should be many such accounts. Do not accuse someone with just hearsay.

    Reply

  8. moguro fukuzo

    August 2, 2014 at 4:30 AM

    Clearly, this is a malicious act of slandering Japan and the Japanese.

    We Japanese will never forget about this.

    Reply

  9. konohazuku001

    August 2, 2014 at 9:13 PM

    Based on these following facts,there was no Korean comfort-woman unwillingly kidnapped by Japanese army or officials.
    1.No one knows the names of the villages or towns where the comfort-women were actually kidnapped.
    2.So far as the comfort-women kidnapping issue is concerned, there is no obvious record which had been written before 1990s.
    3.It is quite strange that so many as 200,000 victims had kept silence from 1945 to the 1990s.
    4.A large amount of money were paid to the Comfort-women in reward for their jobs. Back in those days,it was not a rare case that poor parents necessarily sold their daughters to get money.
    5.There have been no witnesses who can testify the kidnapping incidents. If there had been many comfort-women who were kidnapped, there must have been many witnesses. But nobody saw the incident.
    6.There was no real testimony by the kidnappers. It was already proved that Seiji Yoshida’s testimony was absolutely false statements. At that time in Korea, most of policemen and officials were Koreans, not Japanese.
    7.There was no protest opposing to the kidnapped comfort-women.If there had been kidnapped comfort-women as real events, riots must have been raised.
    8.In Korea, from time immemorial to now ,there always have been many prostituts. In the period of the World WarII,it is quite natural that there must have been prostitution markets there.
    9.Most of Korean comfort-women say “I was sold.” or “I was deceived.” A small number of women say “I was kidnaped.” The credibility of their testimonies are in question. The contentions are rather suspect evidences.
    10.Although The Japan-Korea Basic Relations Treaty was concluded in 1965, South Korea currently lodges various reasons in order to draw out as much money as possible from Japan.
    However,at the time of the conclusion of the treaty, they never argued about the comfort-women issue at all.

    Reply

  10. moguro fukuzo

    August 4, 2014 at 7:36 PM

    There are 3 basic questions.

    1. The Korean government employed comfort women and operated state-owned brothels for the Korean Army during the Korean War while it ignores the fact and never deals with the fact with the same endeavour as it deals with the Comfort Women Issue related to the Japanese Army. Why?

    2. The Korean government has employed comfort women and operated state-owned brothels for US troops up until today for a long period during and after the Korean War, while it never deals with the fact with the same endeavour as it deals with the Comfort Women Issue related to the Japanese Army. Why?

    3. Korean government pays so great attention to the past comfort women while it ignores the present-day Korean women who are compelled to become modern-day comfort women because of their dire situation of being deeply in debt. Why?

    Korean government is a bunch of hypocrites! Koreans have no right to criticize the present day Japanese.

    False Accuzations of Comfort Women
    http://www.howitzer.jp/korea/page03.html

    Reply