Comfort women memorial moving forward in Fort Lee
FORT LEE — A memorial to the thousands of women and girls taken as “comfort women” during World War II is coming to the borough, thanks to the efforts of the Youth Council of Fort Lee.
The Borough Council approved the installation of the monument last week. Several years ago, the borough discussed erecting such a memorial, but those talks fell apart when the groups involved couldn’t agree on what the memorial should consist of. Last year, the Youth Council approached the borough, unaware of those previous discussions, with its own proposal.
“We left it to the youth to come up with the idea, and they did it very successfully,” Mayor Mark Sokolich said.
The proposed memorial will be 5 feet tall, disc shaped, with a silhouette of a girl in traditional Korean dress standing with arms spread in front of a Korean flag. At the base of the memorial will be a poem by Gabrielle Son titled “Stories My Grandmother Tells Me.”
The memorial is intended to commemorate the women and girls, most of them Korean, who were taken by Japanese forces to serve in military brothels during World War II.
Joseph Hong, former president of the Youth Council, said the group came up with the idea for the memorial after watching “Spirits’ Homecoming,” a South Korean drama about two young sisters who are put into service in those brothels.
“Seeing it reenacted in live action brought out new feelings and amplified our feelings of wanting to do something about human rights,” Hong said. “We were freaked out that a human rights infraction on this scale could go forgotten.”
The group is looking to raise $35,000 to install the monument, ideally on March 8, International Women’s Day.
“We wanted to properly address the 200,000 women who were sexually abused in these brothels,” he said. “It’s still something that matters, that everyone should learn about and learn from so that it won’t happen again in the future.”
Though the group and the town haven’t nailed down a location for the memorial, it’s expected to go in Constitution Park.
“It’s the inclination of the council to put it in a place that’s conspicuous,” Sokolich said. He added that the borough will assist with the installation.
“I’ve never been more proud of my council than when this was approved,” he said, adding that each council member gave well-thought-out and rational reasons for voting in favor of the memorial.
While the council was unanimous in approving the memorial, not all in town have been supportive.
Takeshi Furumoto, a Closter resident who has a business in Fort Lee and who was born in an internment camp during World War II, said at last week’s meeting that he wanted more dialogue with the Youth Council.
He said human rights are important, noting how Japanese-Americans suffered in the internment camps, but that a memorial shouldn’t mention the nationalities, as it could divide the Japanese- and Korean-American communities.
“I don’t want to see divisiveness,” he said.
Councilman Peter Suh said the intent is not to divide, but to heal.
“The concern is racial divide, and I believe that the people of Fort Lee are above that,” he said. “This monument is to support those women who felt that they were comfort women and to help them heal and help their families move on. I don’t think this should ever be seen as a divide between Koreans and Japanese.”
Memorials to comfort women have remained a wedge between Koreans and Japanese. As recently as November, the mayor of the Japanese city of Osaka said he was ending a sister-city relationship with San Francisco after it installed a memorial to comfort women in a downtown park. Differences center on whether Japan has made proper reparations, among other issues.
Just a few dozen South Korean victims were still alive as of November.
Pat Kinney, a Leonia resident who grew up in Fort Lee, said she was against the memorial, saying there are already memorials to comfort women and other victims of war, and people should look forward and toward positive things.
Hong, however, said darker times shouldn’t be forgotten.
“There are some really big lessons to be drawn from the darker moments of history,” he said. “It’s important to address all the negatives to make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future.”
Michael W. Curley, Jr., Staff Writer, @mwcurleyjr Published 6:38 a.m. ET Dec. 21, 2017
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