The winter of 1944 was the most piercing winter that the villagers in Xipan had ever experienced This kind of bone piercing is not because of the cold winter, but because of the tusks of the Japanese army
The adopted daughter of Wanaihua (right) in middle age, Li Ladi (left), and Li Ladi’s children
Jingui Village, located in Xipan Township, Yu County, Yangquan City, Shanxi Province, is leaning on a hillside. The trees on the mountain are sparse, and most of them are only bare branches. Occasionally, there are one or two withered and yellow leaves, which are tottering on the top of the trees, like an old dog with ringworm
On the hillside, the low houses made of stones are connected with the stone walls. From a distance, we can’t tell the house from the wall. This is the Japanese stronghold. Everything in Gui Village is covered with thick frost and snow. The bleak sunlight sprinkles on the Xiaosuo Village, giving off a gray cold light, like a white face that has lost blood, silently accusing the Japanese army of its cruelty
As usual, just before dawn, the crows and dogs barked. Today, however, entering Gui Village is still silent. Because yesterday, the last chicken in the village was broken into the abdomen by the Japanese army. Only a few wisps of gossamer smoke prove the existence of life
Jingui Village, Yu County, Shanxi Province, is a Japanese stronghold and fort
The noise of four Japanese soldiers was the first to break the silence Two Japanese soldiers walked behind with guns and kept complaining. The other two Japanese soldiers carried a naked woman in front They are walking along the winding path from the Gui Gun House to the Wu River
The river has been covered with thick ice, which is cold and slippery. Two Japanese soldiers carrying women stumbled and walked unsteadily, Simply put the woman on the ice, and then walked towards the opposite bank, one leg by one. The old and new wounds on the woman’s body are stacked one after another. With the movement of her body, several blood lines are drawn on the ice
The woman was abandoned on the stone beach on the other side of the river. Her long hair, which had already lost its luster, was scattered on her face. Her body, which was blue and blue with cold, attracted several hungry wild dogs. They circled around her. Finally, a fierce dog could not stand it any longer and showed its fangs to the woman
Suddenly, a stone hit hard, and the wild dog howled in pain. An old man came with a crutch and a rough porcelain bowl. The wild dog immediately ran away with his tail between his legs
Since the Japanese army set up a stronghold nearby, corpses can be seen everywhere, and naked women’s corpses are not uncommon. The villagers they met would spontaneously bury the dead, swearing at the”beasts” as if they were too generous for the dead. But the old man did not do so
He walked to the woman, gently brushed her wet knotted hair, put his finger under the woman’s nose, and felt that maybe he thought the woman was still alive, maybe he hoped the woman was still alive. The bowl in his hand fell to the ground with a sound of”Dang”, giving out the most vigorous”Qing Cry” in the piercing winter
The old man quickly took off his torn cotton padded jacket, wrapped the woman tightly on his back and hurried home
The woman who was carried back by the old man is Wanaihua
Wanaihua Seniors
Wan Aihua was born in a village in Helingeer County, Inner Mongolia in 1930. Because they are too poor to support themselves, At the age of 4, her parents sold her to Li Wuxue in Yangquan Village, Yu County, Shanxi Province, as a child bride
Although the life is poor, the couple is harmonious and the life is smooth Until the gunshot on June 7, 1943, everything turned into nothing
A large number of Japanese troops suddenly broke into Yangquan Village to seize food and women. When Wanaihua received the news, she immediately escaped to an underground ditch in Taozhuang. Unfortunately, she was found by the Japanese army and caught in the Gui Gun House. She was locked in a dark and simple cave, where there was only a pile of hay beds
This year, Wanaihua 13 years old
In the evening, several Japanese troops destroyed Wanaihua. Later, no matter day or night, there were always Japanese troops breaking into her earthen kiln, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes in groups. As soon as Wanaihua heard the knock on the door, she couldn’t help retching
Once, when Wan Aihua was not satisfied with the Japanese soldiers, the Japanese soldiers kicked her to the ground. They kept kicking her. When they were tired, they tied Wan Aihua’s hands behind her and hung her upside down on a tree
In this way, Wanaihua endured the torture of the Japanese army, counted the days when no one was dead, and waited for an opportunity, an opportunity to escape from hell
On June 28, the 21st day when Wanaihuabei was captured in the comfort center, this opportunity finally came The Japanese troops in the fort either went to mop up the village or went to search the mountains to fight the guerrillas, and the whole fort suddenly became quiet. In the dead of night, Wanaihua broke the wooden window lattice of the cave and escaped
In order not to be found by the Japanese army, she did not go home directly, but went to the relatives’ home in the neighboring village to hide for a few days. A relative told Wan Aihua that her father-in-law was injured by the Japanese army when the Japanese army was sweeping the village. Later, he heard that she was abused by devils. In a fit of pique, she died
Wan Aihua was so sad that she immediately ran back to Yangquan Village to worship her father-in-law. But unexpectedly, Her husband sold her to Li Jigui, 29 years her senior, for 50 yuan In desperation, Wan Aihua can only follow Li Jigui home
Fortunately, Li Jigui is down-to-earth and takes care of Wanaihua. After a period of recuperation, Wan Aihua gradually recovered and began to help Li Jigui with his laundry and cooking. I thought that life could go on smoothly, but hell once again swallowed up the flowers of love
On August 18, Wan Aihua was washing clothes by the river. Suddenly, there was a loud noise of gongs and drums in the village. Then there was a frightened cry:”The devil has entered the village! The devil has entered the village!”
The Japanese troops at the Xiyan Cannon House and the Gui Cannon House quickly surrounded Yangquan Village. Wan Aihua picked up the clothes in the river and was ready to escape into the mountains with the basin in her arms. Before she got up, the Japanese soldiers grabbed her hair, pulled it up, and tied it on the donkey’s back. For the second time, he was put into the hole earth kiln in the Gui Gun House
In order to punish Wanaihua for escaping, the devil tied her to a tree and whipped her with a whip. But because Wanaihua is young and beautiful, the devils didn’t kill her, but they lined up to torture her. In less than a month, the body of Wanaihua was eroded, and if it goes on like this, it will die
The idea of escape came to my mind again, but the window of the last escape had been tightly sealed by the thick wooden boards of the Japanese army. Therefore, Wanaihua decided to escape from the door leaf. It was a wooden door, and there was a space on it
Wan Aihua waited for several days. On the 29th day, the Japanese army went out to mop up again. She lifted the door up from the low-lying part of the gate post, then lay on the ground and squeezed her thin body out
This time, instead of running home, she hid in the mountains first, and then fled to other places when the moon was dark and the wind was high
After a few months, Wan Aihua’s injury gradually improved. Hearing that her husband was seriously ill, she felt relieved and sneaked back to Yangquan Village. As soon as she entered the door, she saw her husband lying on the kang weakly, skin and bone thin. She decided to stay at home to take care of her husband
But fate did not pity this kind woman at all. On the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Wan Aihua had just made some medicine and was preparing to feed her husband. Suddenly, a group of devils came in Wan Aihua was caught in the Gui Cannon Building for the third time
The repeated escape of Wan Aihua completely angered the Japanese army. They used all the methods they could think of to torture Wan Aihua, including whipping, pressing the bar, tiger stool, and hanging upside down
Wanai was tortured to death, her right earlobe was torn, her hip and ribs were fractured, her arms were dislocated, her body was severely deformed, her waist sank into the pelvis, her neck retracted into the chest, and her lower body was severely eroded…
This time, Wanai was tortured for 50 days. On January 28, 1944, Wan Aihua was bleeding and fainted. The devil thought she was dead, so he stripped her clothes and sent four Japanese soldiers to throw her on the stone beach on the other side of the Wu River. Fortunately, a passing old man saved her home
The old man didn’t stop using hot towels to keep her warm. He stayed at her bedside for a day and a night before he saved her, but she lost her ability to take care of herself
A few months later, she heard that her husband was dying, and saved her last breath to see her. So she asked someone to help her tie herself to the donkey’s back and returned to Yangquan Village. When the husband saw the flowers, he spat out a mouthful of blood and swallowed his last breath
When Wanaihua was in her teens, she lost her fertility In order to have a future life, she adopted a daughter named Li Ladi with the help of a kind person
Wan Aihua has been lying in bed for more than three years and can’t get out of bed, Life is all dependent on relatives, and feces and urine are all taken care of by foster daughters. After getting better, she fled to Taiyuan with her adopted daughter and made a living by doing needlework
Zhang Shuangbing
In 1992, a person named Zhang Shuangbing paid a sudden visit, and the past that Wan Aihua did not want to think about was revealed again
Zhang Shuangbing asked Wan Aihua to testify and accuse the Japanese aggressors of their numerous crimes against local women. At that time, Wan Aihua was 62 years old, but regardless of her physical pain, she resolutely embarked on the path of justice, She became one of the first Chinese women to expose the atrocities of Japanese comfort women
On December 9, 1992, Wan Aihua, as the representative of Chinese women victims, went to Tokyo, Japan, to participate in the”International Hearing on Women Victims of War”, exposing the sins of Japanese aggressors to the world
In September 1996, at the invitation of Japanese Senate Member Yingfu Tian and Speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Takako Takei, they went to Tokyo, Kobe, Hiroshima, Okayama, Dabang and other places to participate in folk gatherings to expose to the Japanese people the crimes of the Japanese army’s brutal violation of human rights and cruelty to women
In October 1998, female victims in Yu County, Shanxi Province, including Wan Aihua, jointly filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court of Japan, accusing the Japanese army of crimes committed that year
On September 22, 1999, Wan Aihua came to Tokyo again as a witness to testify for the victim
However, it took eight years, but three lawsuits and three defeats. The Tokyo District Court sentenced Wan Aihua and others to lose the lawsuit on the ground that”individuals cannot sue the government”
Even so, Wan Aihua didn’t give up. She said:“I can’t just let it go. As long as I live, I will fight for one day and get justice back!”
As she said, Wan Aihua fought until the last moment of her life. Until September 4, 2013, before she died in Taiyuan, Shanxi, she hoped that justice would be done and justice would be recovered
Now, as time goes by, the victims of those years are gradually getting older and few people are left
They are still pleading for justice, while Japan is waiting for their death
This is a painful period of history, a heavy legacy of history
We should fight against forgetting and remember history. Remember the purpose of history, Not to perpetuate hatred, but to remember that he is a Chinese with blood and conscience, who has the”common sense” to distinguish between people and ghosts
References:
Zhang Xianwen, Chief Editor: The Complete History of the Nanjing Massacre, Nanjing University Press, 2012
Su Zhiliang: Japanese Sexual Slaves: The Truth of China’s”Comfort Women”, People’s Publishing House, 2000
Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei:”Comfort Women” and Sexual Atrocities (Volume 19 of Japanese Invasion in China), Shandong Pictorial Press, 2015
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