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The history of ‘Sexual slavery victims for the Japanese imperial army’ to be used in the early 1990s, which is leading the recovery of world peace and human rights with a new perspective, new language, and new future. At the center was a survivor of the Japanese military sex slave. At the same time, there were activists, researchers, and citizens who were with the victim, found data, and gave meaning to the victim’s language. I want to record those moments and continue history in future generations.

<In 2001, Ha Bok-hyang testified>

On February 1, 2001, researcher Ko Hye-jung of the Korea Chongshindae's Institute visited Ha Bok-hyang's house, but Ha Bo-khyang said she was 'still hesitant'. She did not report the sexual slavery damage herself, but her doctor called the institute and said that there was a sexual slavery victim in the Jagalchi market in Busan.

But when she started talking to Ko Hye-jung, she seemed to be overcome by unbearable feelings. There were stories that were difficult to understand. On that day, Ko Hye-jung promised to meet next and thought that he would be able to have a deeper conversation next time. But that day did not come, because Ha Bok-hyang died just ten days later, and Ko Hye-jung published a single interview with Ha Bok-hyang in the Japanese military's comfort women victim testimonial book(Vol.5).

<In 1945, Kahuko was recorded on a prisoner interrogation card caught in the Philippines>

During World War II, US troops who fought against Japanese troops in the Philippines made cards that recorded personal information about local captured enemy or civilian prisoners. There is a Korean woman's card called 'Ka, Fuko' with a front and side picture of the face attached and ten fingers. The prisoner number 51J-20946I, born March 17, 1925, is the original address of Yecheon, Gyeongbuk.

She was found by US forces in Luzon, Philippines on 14 September and transported to Luzon First Detention Center on 3 October, and left for Japan on 12 October on the return ship with more than 150 civilian detainees. Kahuko's prisoner number can be found on the list of returnees written by the US military.

Ha Bok-hyang's prisoner interrogation card: It is recorded as Kahuko (1945.10.).

(source: The National Archives and Records Administration of the United States)

<In 2017, Ha Bok-hyang and Kahuko

It's like someone else, but it's the same person>

The person 'Kahuko' recorded in this card is the same person as 'Ha Bok-hyang'. In 2017, a team led by Professor Jeong Jin-sung of Seoul National University found the card at the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States and scanned it at high resolution. I was a member of the research team at the time and looked at 40 cards and stopped looking at the card that recorded Kahuko. Kahuko's face in the card overlapped with the face of the Ha Bok-hyang printed in a blurry on the testimony book(Vol.5).

In October 1993, the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare released the results of its investigation into the Philippine prisoner interrogation card. Of the total 164,395 women, 19 were from Chosun, including 10 listed as Comfort Girl, one listed as Comfort Unit, and eight others. The data is being collected by the National Archives of Korea from the Japanese government. However, the names and original addresses of 11 people listed as 'Comfort Girl' and 'Comfort Unit' were painted in the name of protecting personal information, and they lost their meaning as historical data.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bang Sun-joo, a historian who has been steadily investigating the data of the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States, donated 30 copies of the prisoner interrogation card to the Korea Chongshindae's Institute in 1996. There were more victims than the number of victims surveyed by Japan, and few overlaps. The institute found Sonoda Soran(a pseudonym) based on the original address recorded on the card; and listened to her statement, and published the content in the book of testimony(1999). Sonoda Soran was registered as a victim of 'Japanese military sex slave' in the Korean government.

I read the testimony of Ha Bok-hyang in 2017 and found that it was similar to Kim Soran's testimony. The process of bombing the US troops pouring from the sky, evacuation with the Japanese Imperial Army, escape to live, threat of US military fire, shouting ‘Korea’, being rescued and transferred to the camp was really similar. There was a card of Kahuko in the copy donated by Dr. Bang Sun-ju, but it was difficult to identify because the face and fingerprints were so poor that they seemed blurry. However, when I saw Kahuko's face in the high-definition image of Professor Jung Jin-sung's research team, I felt that she was the same person as Ha Bok-hyang.

But intuition alone could not persuade people. I had to think and use scientific methods. I asked the police to match the fingerprints on Kahuko’s interrogation card to Ha Bok-hyang’s, and they were told that the two fingerprints were identical.

<We need to listen more actively>

If Ha Bok-hyang had died before 1968, when the Korean government began print-printing, it may not have been forever revealed that Kahuko was the same person as Ha Bok-hyang. So how did Ha Bok-hyang become Kahuko? The Japanese pronunciation of Ha Bok-hyang is Ka, HukuKou, which I think became Kahuko through the hands of the person in charge of the records at the Philippine concentration camp. She grew up in colonial Chosun and could not learn to write, so it would have been difficult to confirm whether the recorder properly listed her name in the document.

And rather than a record of her being born in 1925, her words of her birth year 1926(born in the year of the Tiger) are more reliable. She has consistently told her age according to the so-called ‘American age’, and then her words become accurate: ‘Joseon was liberated at the age of 19’. Koreans who grew up during the colonial period under the Japanese Empire tend to speak their age according to American age. But we forget that fact and make arbitrarily interpreted chronology.

This is not to argue that the researcher can choose materials such as literature and testimony according to his intuition while describing history. There are fragmented materials such as statements, images, and literature in front of us, and there are many gaps between them that sometimes seem to be contradictory. I just want to say that I need a researcher who wants to fill the gap, an active listening of the later generations, and a passion to look at all the data meaningfully. In particular, that passion is more necessary when writing down the history of colonial women deprived of the right to read and write. I sincerely hope that Ha Bok-hyang in heaven now will be comforted by our passion.