Comfort Women

Rating:
Summary: an unsparing look at one of the great war crimes of WWII
Review: Comfort Women is a spellbinding and terrible recital of crimes that can never be forgiven. Girls as young as 10 were rounded up in the Philippines. Sometimes the recruits were bought as chattel, from their families or from brothel-keepers; more often they were tricked with promises of jobs as nurses, laundrywomen, and factory workers. Typically they were given a rough medical examination, which to an ignorant virgin was terrifying enough. Then they were raped by officers. Finally they went into the comfort stations, often thousands of miles from home, sometimes in combat zones (where they were indeed required to serve as nurses). In distant places, the headman would be ordered to supply the women, an order that was met by handing over the village's widows. -- Dan Ford

Rating:
Summary: A scholarly work? No, it is not.
Review: How can you call this book a scholarly work, when it fatally missed some of most important documents out to show the readers?
Well, although the document no.1 was "shown" on p.42 of this book, Yoshimi failed to translate it for the readers, so I shall do the job for him.
As stated at the footnote on p.43, the document is titled "Matters Regarding the Recruitment of Women Workers for Military Comfort Stations" which was a notification to the Chiefs of Staff of both North and Central China Area Army.
My rough translation is following:
"For setting up `comfort stations' in the war zone in China, we have started to recruit people in Japan for the jobs at the stations including the [comfort] women. Now, to our nuisance, there have been some reports like that some traders are quite inappropriate and wicked that some of them were questioned by the police because their way of recruiting women are deceptive and,in some cases, sort of kidnapping while they are abusing the permission for the recruitment from the Imperial Army. As this matter deeply concerns us, you are advised to take this matter into your serious consideration and the selleting of the traders who recruit women for us in China should be under your tightest control, while working together with the local authorities of the Police and the Military Police so that regrettable things that disgrace the honor of the Imperial Army should never happen."
Although the left-wing Asahi newspaper reported that this document shows the very involvement of the Army to the recruitment of the comfort women,(i.e. the kidnapping, they meant) the contents shows nothing but good intentions of the Army.
Document no.2 was of voices of Korean "comfort girls" those who were captured by the U.S. soldiers in Myitkyina, Burma, whose picture is shown on the dust jacket and p.76 of this book.
This abridged translation is made from the Japanese version of the U.S. document which I quoted from "Jugun-ianfu Shiryoshu"( the Comfort Women Documents) edited by Yoshimi Yoshiaki(p.439):
"The contracts they made with the trader vary from six months to a year depended on the money their parents were given.
They lived in individual rooms in a large 2 story house. Their lives were comparatively "luxurious" thanks to the prenty of money they were given. They could go shopping in larger cities and the Japanese soldiers always gave them presents. They enjoyed picnics, sports day, diner parties and fun evening with the soldiers.
They could refuse to serve soldiers who are drunk.
Many girls have been asked to marry by the soldiers and, in fact, some women actually married to Japanese soldiers. "
The Comfort women were paid three times more than average Japanese soldiers. Some women worked only a year and a half then went home and built a big house.

The U.S.Army reported that the Japanese "comfort station" was similar to their own system. They found nothing wrong in this issue to take into the Tokyo Trial.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki's work failed to show those facts to the readers. It is up to you to decide if this book is really academic or mere propaganda of an anti-Japanese Japanese.

Rating:
Summary: A scholarly work? No, it is not.
Review: How can you call this book a scholarly work, when it fatally missed some of most important documents out to show the readers?
Well, although the document no.1 was "shown" on p.42 of this book, Yoshimi failed to translate it for the readers, so I shall do the job for him.
As stated at the footnote on p.43, the document is titled "Matters Regarding the Recruitment of Women Workers for Military Comfort Stations" which was a notification to the Chiefs of Staff of both North and Central China Area Army.
My rough translation is following:
"For setting up `comfort stations' in the war zone in China, we have started to recruit people in Japan for the jobs at the stations including the [comfort] women. Now, to our nuisance, there have been some reports like that some traders are quite inappropriate and wicked that some of them were questioned by the police because their way of recruiting women are deceptive and,in some cases, sort of kidnapping while they are abusing the permission for the recruitment from the Imperial Army. As this matter deeply concerns us, you are advised to take this matter into your serious consideration and the selleting of the traders who recruit women for us in China should be under your tightest control, while working together with the local authorities of the Police and the Military Police so that regrettable things that disgrace the honor of the Imperial Army should never happen."
Although the left-wing Asahi newspaper reported that this document shows the very involvement of the Army to the recruitment of the comfort women,(i.e. the kidnapping, they meant) the contents shows nothing but good intentions of the Army.
Document no.2 was of voices of Korean "comfort girls" those who were captured by the U.S. soldiers in Myitkyina, Burma, whose picture is shown on the dust jacket and p.76 of this book.
This abridged translation is made from the Japanese version of the U.S. document which I quoted from "Jugun-ianfu Shiryoshu"( the Comfort Women Documents) edited by Yoshimi Yoshiaki(p.439):
"The contracts they made with the trader vary from six months to a year depended on the money their parents were given.
They lived in individual rooms in a large 2 story house. Their lives were comparatively "luxurious" thanks to the prenty of money they were given. They could go shopping in larger cities and the Japanese soldiers always gave them presents. They enjoyed picnics, sports day, diner parties and fun evening with the soldiers.
They could refuse to serve soldiers who are drunk.
Many girls have been asked to marry by the soldiers and, in fact, some women actually married to Japanese soldiers. "
The Comfort women were paid three times more than average Japanese soldiers. Some women worked only a year and a half then went home and built a big house.

The U.S.Army reported that the Japanese "comfort station" was similar to their own system. They found nothing wrong in this issue to take into the Tokyo Trial.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki's work failed to show those facts to the readers. It is up to you to decide if this book is really academic or mere propaganda of an anti-Japanese Japanese.

Rating:
Summary: Why some of Japanese are afraid of their past?
Review: It is not a easy book to read; it sure will make many of people in today's materialized society to realize how lucky they are.

This book should be included in our text book to teach our new generation that freedom and liberity is not FREE and there is always a price to pay.

If the Japanese government is not so sensitive and being over-protective about the issue, they should use this book as one of their text book in learning the mistake in their past, and hopefully they won't make the same mistake again in their new generation.

Rating:
Summary: Every article in this book is lie.
Review: The author, Yosiaki Yosimi, has alreay admitted that this book was a falsehood.

Rating:
Summary: Why we can say the author is a pro-communist...
Review: The Words of Mr. Unko Tamezo is basically true. Most of Mr. Yoshimi's books are published from Otsuki Shoten Pub. and Iwanami Shoten Pub., both well known as pro-communistic publications. Esp. No anti-communists want to publish their books from Otsuki Shoten. Please remember Korean people is totally in the dark by the Korean government. All both compensations were completed by the Japan-(South) Korea Basic Treaty (1965). So, their acts are a sort of duplicate billing.