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

almost the entire night. I was shaking in the dark the whole time, and ever since then I have suffered from incurable trembling. Each time when I am nervous my body begins to shake uncontrollably. Look at my hands. They are trembling now. I cannot talk about that horrible experience. Whenever I speak of it, I become nervous and feel tremendous pain in my heart.
    The following day I was taken back to the village by Liu Erdan before dawn. A few days later I was again taken to the blockhouse. This time a Japanese soldier and Liu Erdan conducted me there together. They forced me to walk and kept yelling at me for being too slow. I was taken into that small blockhouse again. This time a crowd of Japanese soldiers gang-raped me. I hurt so much that I didn’t even have the strength to cry. The soldiers finally let me leave before daybreak. This was repeated again and again; I don’t remember how many times I was taken to the mountaintop. After the torture in the blockhouse at night, during the day the Japanese soldiers would come to my home to assault me, wearing wooden sandals. They told a Chinese collaboratorto threaten me and to say, “Don’t even think of running away, or your head will be off your shoulders!”
    This situation lasted for two full years until I turned twenty-one. By that time I had become very sick. I suffered from constant dizziness and body aches as well as from a menstrual disorder. My sister was also raped by the Japanese soldiers. She was carried to the blockhouse and held there for a long period of time. We often bemoaned our fate, wondering, “Why us?” In order to escape the horrible situation I tried to remarry, but everyone knew that I had been raped by Japanese soldiers, and no man in the region wanted to marry me. Knowing that it was impossible to find a man in Yu County who would marry me, I married a man named Yang Erquan in distant Zhengjiazhai Village in Quyang County and finally escaped the misery.
    My second husband was the same age as I. He was a shepherd, a very honest person. His family was poor but I did not mind; he did not look down on me either. Indeed, he was a really nice person. We helped each other in our poor life. The torture of the Japanese soldiers damaged my health. In order to cure my uterine damage my husband took on several hard jobs simultaneously for many years to earn money for my treatments. He peddled goods and also cleaned cesspools to earn some millet, and then he sold the millet to make some money. He encouraged me, saying, “You will get better.” I wanted to repay him for his kindness and to be able to have children with him, so I did my part, too, and sought treatment. I was so happy when I finally became pregnant and gave birth to a son at age thirty-three. Later, I gave birth to a girl.
    China won the Resistance War, and the Japanese troops fled back home in 1945. However, my misery did not disappear with them. Although I was able to bear children, my uterine damage was never completely cured. It has bothered me for more than fifty years. Sometimes it is better, sometimes worse, with a filthy reddish discharge. My husband worked too hard and damaged his own health as a result. He died in 1991. I was deeply saddened.
    My sister has suffered even more than I have. She was not able to have children because of the torture, so she was abandoned by her husband and she had to remarry twice. At this time both my sister and I still suffer from severe uterine damage. Our lower bodies hurt constantly, which makes every movement very difficult. My health has been declining in recent years. The lower back pain that has bothered me for years has become worse, as has the trembling in my hands and legs. I am also suffering from acute psychological problems, such as intense fear and nightmares in which I relive those past experiences. I am trembling right now as I recall the past horror. Theseunspeakable things are really hard to talk about, but I can no longer keep