The story of 83-year-old Park Yong-sim in the Choson Sinbo, the mouthpiece of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, included claims that the Japanese occupiers killed a Korean girl who refused to do as she was told, boiled her in a cauldron and fed her to other comfort women as meat soup.

It was the first part of a series entitled "Uncovering Japan: Testimony of victims of forced conscription."

"One day, the Japanese bastards said, 'You girls haven't been eating enough, so today, we'll treat you to meat soup,' and they gave us meat soup,” Park recalled. “We didn't know why they gave it to us, but we ate it all, and when we did, the bastards burst into laughter, saying the soup was made from the meat of a Korean girl." Park said her captors told her they had killed and boiled a disobedient Korean girl.

Park was captured at age 17 in 1938 and forced to work as a prostitute for Japanese soldiers. Her mother died early, and she was raised by her stepmother and her father, a miner. At age 14, she was sold off as a maid to a suit shop in Nampo, South Pyongan Province, and in March 1938, a Japanese policeman appeared and offered to introduce her to a good employment opportunity. She demurred, saying she needed to ask her parents, but he forced her on a train that took her to Nanjing, China.

She said some 500m from the Japanese Army barracks there was a military brothel. Park had to provide sexual services to about 30 Japanese soldiers a day. The Choson Sinbo said she was taken to several brothels in China until liberation, when she returned home with the help of a Chinese person. It said she had a hysterectomy and has been living in daily psychosomatic pain.

(englishnews@chosun.com )