Free Chinese Comfort Women by Peipei Qiu, Su Zhiliang, Chen Lifei Page A

year [1941], when the weather was cold and we were wearing cotton-padded jackets, Japanese soldiers dashed into Hou-Hedong Village. I remember the time because that was the day my husband died. He died of typhoid before my son reached age one. When the Japanese soldiers saw the coffin and heard that my husband had died of typhoid, they feared being infected and left. However, later the soldiers came again after the coffin was carried away. I was in deep grief for my husband at the time and too weak to resist them. The Japanese soldiers easily caught and raped me.
    After that initial time, the Japanese soldiers stationed in the blockhouse on top of nearby Mount Yangma came to my house frequently and raped me. Every time my parents heard my screams they rushed over to protect me, but each time they were dragged out to the yard and beaten by the Japanese soldiers. Several times they were beaten until blood covered their faces, and I saw blood gushing out of their mouths. This situation lasted for a long time. Every day two or three Japanese soldiers came down the mountain to rape me at my home, which left me constantly terrified. I remember, among the Japanese troops who came, there was a tall man who had a heavy mustache. He might have been an officer because he always put on an air of grandeur. He often arrived in civilian clothes, and each time he came, the other soldiers would not show up. Another one, who must have been an officer as well, often wore a black top and brownish-yellow trousers; he often came without his gun. Frightened of the rapes while having no place to hide, my body was always trembling with fear. What a horror!
    The Japanese soldiers never used any contraceptive devices when they raped me. They would order me to bathe before they raped me. You could never imagine how evil these soldiers were: afterwards they would wash their lower bodies in our cooking bowl! Water in the area was extremely precious; there was no running water or well so I had to carry water from a faraway place. However, the Japanese soldiers didn’t care at all when they used my water. I always felt my body was very dirty after I was raped, so each time after being raped I would scoop water from the container and wash myself repeatedly. Since there was no man in the house who could help mecarry water, I had to save every drop of available water and sometimes even had to reuse the washing water.
    The Japanese soldiers also took me by force to their stronghold on Mount Yangma, where they raped me. The first time they took me to the blockhouse it was an evening, before I had my supper. I was taken up the mountain by the head of the village’s Self Guard Corps, traitor Liu Erdan. He forced me to mount a donkey and guarded me. Once we reached the mountain path I had to dismount and walk on foot. Walking on the mountain road was excruciating on my feet, especially as they had been previously bound.
    When we arrived at the stronghold on the mountain, the Japanese soldiers forced me into a small blockhouse. It was already dark outside and it was even darker inside the blockhouse. On a heated brick bed there was something whitish, perhaps it was a cotton-padded mattress. The Japanese soldiers ripped off my clothes and an officer held a candle to examine my body. He looked at my lower body very carefully, perhaps checking to see if I had venereal disease, but at that time I didn’t know what he was doing and I was very frightened. I thought I was going to die! I remember that man’s face clearly. It was a dark face, full of hair, and his two eyes were glowing like a wolf’s! The candle drippings fell on my body one by one and scalded my skin, but I dared not cry. My body shook with each drop of hot wax and I kept shaking out of fear. I didn’t dare look at the officer; I only stared at the dripping candle, hoping it would all be over soon.
    The officer began to rape me after that. He rose from the bed and returned repeatedly, torturing me