The Disturbing History of Japan's 'Comfort Women': Rare Photographs

[teach1st]

WW II Japanese fascism doesn't show up like WW II European fascism does in discussions about current events and politics. This article from Rare Historical Photos (https://rarehistoricalphotos.com) documenting wartime Japan's cruelty is disturbing.

The Rare Historical Photos site is worth a bookmark, by the way. Their content is extensive and first-rate.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/comfort-women/

Between 1932 and 1945, the Imperial Japanese government created and oversaw a vast system of sexual slavery that stretched across much of Asia and the Pacific.

The term “comfort women,” introduced by the Japanese military, was intentionally euphemistic and has long been criticized by scholars for downplaying the magnitude of the crimes committed.

Researchers generally agree that the number of women forced into this system reached into the hundreds of thousands, with victims ranging from adult women to girls barely twelve years old.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

1. Shocking and heartbreaking

[tblue37]

8. Video interview with 92-year-old survivor. It will break your heart.

https://m.

&t=765s&pp=2AH9BZACAQ%3D%3D

[canetoad]

2. As I scroll through

The rest of the pictures on the website, they are full of women with downcast eyes and sad faces. Some are children, some a little older. All the Japanese troops are smiling.

The issue of comfort women periodically hits the news here; we are closer geographically. Thank you for posting. Very poignant images.

[Irish_Dem]

9. This is what I see as well.

Happy men, miserable tortured women.

[BComplex]

3. And the president of the United States and his republican party are

supporters and protectors of those guilty of this type of crime.

[Hope22]

4. A river of sadness and pain.

We have no idea where the women ice hauls off end up. I fear for all of them!

[LudwigPastorius]

5. These atrocities are one of many reasons Imperial Japan had to be stopped as soon as we had the ability to stop it.

I refuse to fault Truman for the decision he made.

[BaronChocula]

6. For humans, brutality is a choice

That choice is what divides us.

[BlueMTexpat]

7. My DIL's late mother lived

in Korea during this era, but - fortunately for her - belonged to a moderately wealthy family and thus was able to escape the comfort women purges. But she NEVER forgot the horror of those days for others.

She was also fortunate to be educated, and read and spoke fluent Japanese, as well as Korean. Needs must!

She later married a Korean husband. Per the story, her older brother told her that he could no longer support her in his household (their parents were deceased by then) so she must choose a husband. He presented her with three candidates. She had little time to choose and selected her busband because he was the tallest of the three!

She then worked in Korea to support his graduate studies in the US until they could afford for her and their two older children to follow him there in the late '50s. My DIL was their third and last child, born in the late '60s in the USA.

Her husband ultimately became a civil servant with the USG, working in statistics until his retirement. Once my DIL was in school, her mom worked as a translator, also for the USG.

Both are now deceased. But they were amazing, IMO, for what they lived through. They were also wonderful people. And, as you can imagine, life was no picnic for the family even after they moved to the USA.