Bergen County to honor WWII 'comfort women' for suffering at hands of Japanese

“This has nothing to do with the Japanese government,” stressed Jeanne Baratta, chief of staff for Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan. “It’s more to honor those women.”

Baratta said the county executive’s office received a “glossy magazine” a while ago from an organization calling itself Japanese Women for Justice and Peace, who said the stories of abductions and forced sexual slavery were lies.

“The county executive is not shying away from it though, it’s to remember these women, so we don’t forget what happened,” she said.

Kotler said the emails, which she has also received, are from what she called a “well-financed right-wing group” in Japan.

“They are true believers of this perception of this history, a history that legitimate historians would roll their eyes and shake their heads,” she said.

Yumiko Yamamoto, who lives in Tokyo, wrote via email that she is among the organizers of Japanese Women for Justice and Peace, also known as “Nadesiko Action,” which she described as a grassroots gathering of Japanese women who are concerned about the comfort women issue. She said they do not belong to any political organizations, and that she is among those who have written emails to elected officials and newspapers in recent weeks.

Yamamoto said the claims that are inscribed in the monuments are not facts.

“This is a humiliation and dishonor of our country and ancestry,” she wrote.

Mina Yoshigaki, president of the Japanese-American Society of New Jersey in Fort Lee, called the issue a “sensitive one,” but one that should be left to the governments of each nation to resolve. She said Japanese and Koreans living in Bergen County get along, and that the comfort women issue should not be politicized in the United States.

“That statue, they say it’s educational, for educational purposes, and that’s fine,” she said. “Japanese people have put monuments in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just like that. Not to hate American people, but to remember victims.”

Karen Fujii, chairwomen of the Tenafly Japanese Community Association, whose membership counts about 50 families in the borough, said the comfort women controversy has never been discussed at any gatherings she’s attended. Fujii acknowledged that she didn’t know that the county was planning to erect a memorial.

Personally, she said, she doesn’t object to the stone, although she said it’s not a “proud moment” for the Japanese.

“I try to respect what happened in the past, and we can’t change it now, so we do the best we can to live positively,” she said. “I think the Japanese community here is aware of the issue, but it’s not something that is up for discussion on a regular basis.”

Email: alvarado@northjersey.com