http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/events/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html
Palisades Park monument to WWII 'comfort women' sparks historical tug-of-war [video]
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2012 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY MAY 10, 2012, 9:27 AM
BY MONSY ALVARADO
STAFF WRITER
Three Korean lawmakers on Wednesday placed bouquets of white chrysanthemums near a stone monument in Palisades Park dedicated to “comfort women” — more than 200,000 Asians who were reportedly forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.
AMY NEWMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Members of the National Assembly of Korea, including, from left, Byoung-Wan Chang, Myoung Su Lee and Choong Whan Kim lay flowers before the monument.
AMY NEWMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A monument in Palisades Park is dedicated to 'comfort women.'
The moving tribute, however, comes just days after four officials from Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party claimed that there is no proof sex slaves existed and asked for the monument’s removal, saying it portrayed historical inaccuracies, Palisades Park Mayor James Rotundo said. Historical accounts, interviews and testimonials, however, document the story of the comfort women.
The monument in Palisades Park, which counts more than half of its 19,622 residents as Korean, is the only known tribute in the United States to the comfort women. A monument was erected in Seoul, South Korea, in front of the Japanese Embassy last year. Rotundo promised the Korean lawmakers that the Palisades Park monument wouldn’t be removed.
“Their purpose was to have us pretty much remove it,” he said on Wednesday as he stood in front of the library. “Regardless of whatever else they said their main goal was, to come here to think we would be intimidated to take it away, and we are not.” Rotundo said during a three-hour meeting last Sunday with town officials, the four Japanese legislators disputed the number of comfort women and claimed that they willingly served the soldiers.
That session came days after Shigeyuki Hiroki, Japan’s consul-general in New York, met with Rotundo. The mayor said he was told that Japanese officials were interested in funding local youth programs, donating books on Japanese culture to the library and planting Japanese cherry blossoms in the town — if the monument were removed. Two others at the meeting — Deputy Mayor Jason Kim and town Clerk Martin Gobbo — also said the offer was made.
But in an email sent to The Record on Wednesday, Hiroki’s office said he made no such offer. The email confirmed both meetings took place, but provided few details on what was discussed.
“Ambassador Shigeyuke Hiroki met with [the] mayor of Palisades Park on May 1, and explained about the position of the Japanese government relating to the issue of comfort women, and requested for his understanding and necessary adjustment which would facilitate smooth exchanges between the communities,” the email stated.
The ambassador declined to explain what was meant by “necessary adjustment.” However, the email seemed to distance the position of the consulate from that of the four lawmakers, saying the Japanese government has apologized to the women on many occasions and even set up a fund in 1995 for those women who are still alive.
It was in October 2010 that the monument with a copper plaque depicting a soldier and a cowering woman was erected, mostly at the encouragement of local artist Steven Cavallo, the Korean American Voters Council, Rotundo and Kim, who is Korean- American.
Bergen County’s freeholders donated the stone for the monument, and Dennis Mc-Nerney, the county executive at the time, called the debated World War II-era episode one of “history’s greatest tragedies.” Outside the Palisades Park library on Wednesday, Rotundo and Kim told their Korean guests — who were in the United States for three days — that the monument was not meant to blame the current Japanese government, but that it was an education tool to teach younger generations about the tragedies of war.
‘Learn from the history’
“This is an issue against women; this kind of atrocity of rape and abduction shouldn’t happen anymore,” said Kim, the first Korean-American to be elected to a council seat in the state. “If we don’t learn from the past history and correct this, it will happen again, and that scares me. That is what drives me to have this monument and tell the whole world why we should have this monument.”
One of the Korean congressmen, Jang Byeong Wan, said they visited Palisades Park “to show appreciation for having the monument here.”
“You can only learn from the history,” he said through Kim, who served as a translator.
Michael Roberts · Barringer High School
Japan has never been held accountable for any of the war crimes commented in China or other southeast Asia countries.
Reply · · 18 hours ago
Guido Spinozzi · Top Commenter · SUNY New Paltz
Yes, this monument should stand, as a history lesson! This should never happen again!
Reply · · 22 hours ago
Paul B. Kwak · The University of Hard Knocks
Indeed, never ever again !
Reply · · 22 hours ago
Martin Meehan · Top Commenter
what about a monument to the comfort women busted in Pal Park and Edgewater?
Reply · · 23 hours ago
J.g. Bender · Top Commenter
The monument should stay. Perhaps, build a bigger one.
http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/events/051012_Palisades_Park_ceremony_remembers_comfort_women.html?c=y&page=2
Last December, two comfort women traveled from Korea to visit the monument, and answered questions at the Palisades Park library about their stories of rape that they said lasted for several years. They are among a handful of comfort women who reside in Korea and protest every week in front of the Japanese Embassy asking for a formal apology from the government.
In 1993, the Japanese government accepted the role of its military in setting up brothels, and a declaration known as the “Kono Statement” offered an apology. But many, including the surviving comfort women, didn’t accept the statement because it was issued by a Cabinet secretary, not by Parliament.
In 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a non-binding resolution urging Japan to acknowledge and apologize for its wartime sex slavery.
But in recent years, members of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party have said there is no evidence that the military kidnapped women and forced them into sex slavery. The four legislators who visited Palisades Park are members of that party.
A number of interviews, historical accounts, testimonials, and books on the comfort women have been published and can easily be found on the Internet. Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, who attended Wednesday’s gathering at the library, produced a documentary and wrote a book in 1998 called “Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women” She said she interviewed about 50 women in South Korea, China and Japan.
Her interest began when she was living in Washington, where she was asked to translate for a comfort woman who was going to speak at a Korean Methodist Church. “I was probably 10 years younger [than the woman] and she said to me, ‘Could you imagine what it was like to have 30, 40 soldiers on top of you every day when you were born and raised in the culture where chastity was more precious than life itself?’ ” said Kim-Gibson, who lives in New York. “Can you imagine?”
Email: alvarado@northjersey.com
Michael Roberts · Barringer High School
Japan has never been held accountable for any of the war crimes commented in China or other southeast Asia countries.
Reply · 2 · · May 10 at 9:51am
Guido Spinozzi · Top Commenter · SUNY New Paltz
Yes, this monument should stand, as a history lesson! This should never happen again!
Reply · 2 · · May 10 at 5:57am
Paul B. Kwak
Indeed, never ever again !
Reply · · May 10 at 6:00am
J.g. Bender · Top Commenter
The monument should stay. Perhaps, build a bigger one.
Reply · 1 · · May 10 at 4:19am
Barry Mernin · Works at Hong Kong International School
Hey idiots. No. This monument to victimization should not stand.
What does an American town have to do with Korean and Japanese relations? Keep your squabbles in your home countries.
Reply · · May 12 at 7:05pm
Barry Mernin · Works at Hong Kong International School
Classy!
Reply · · May 14 at 2:23pm
Martin Meehan · Top Commenter
what about a monument to the comfort women busted in Pal Park and Edgewater?
Reply · · May 10 at 5:17am
(mochi thinking) see,the above comments are from racial US people, they ignore that US solders buy women, or rape girls all in the world. they seem to think that yellow JAP monkey should go to hell, they must dirty ethnic than us. i wonder that its from some biased Catholics teaching.
(mochi thinking)
yes,the figure should paint also the scene when japanese dirty soldiers paid their half of monthly earn 10 yen for only 15 minutes to korean comfort women...70% of comfort women were japanese,then korean P was not popular with in,but a little bit of cheaper.
also US should build the figure that today's korean comfort women in NJ,LS,CA,TN,washingtonDC who are treated as sex slaves by US people.
japan should build the figure that US soldiers are raping girls in Yokohama or Okinawa.
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