마이너리티의 역사기록운동과 오키나와의 일본군 ‘위안부’

Abstract

This article focuses on the social background which enabled Grandma Pae Ponggi, a surviving victim of Japanese Army-operated 'comfort women' recruitment, to come up with her pioneering public testimony in 1975. Two crucial elements of this background are the fact-finding activities on the forcible mobilization of Koreans which took place in 1972, right after Okinawa's reversion to Japan, and the related movement for recording the first-hand experiences of the Battle of Okinawa. The residents of Okinawa had been engaged in the testimony collection on the Battle of Okinawa since the late 1960s. Resisting the tone of the official war histories mostly based on military and bureaucratic logic, they recorded their experiences. The Joint Korean-Japanese Investigative Commission for fact-finding on the forcible recruitment of Koreans in the time of the Battle of Okinawa, which was formed in 1972, followed on the earlier achievements of this testimony-collecting movement. At the same time, it managed to revive the memories and experiences about the Korean 'military labourers' and 'comfort women', at that time already forgotten among Okinawa's residents. Okinawa residents' attempt to engage in a criticism of aggressive war's horrors 'from below' resulted in their sympathy towards the fact-finding activities related to the forcible recruitment of Koreans. Familiarizing themselves with the experiences of Koreans, yet another group of Battle of Okinawa's victims, helped Okinawans to relativize their own victimhood and start also recording the history of their own war responsibility. This qualitative shift of Battle of Okinawa testimony-collection movement prepared the scene for emergence of Pae Ponggi.