Lynn's Reviews > White Chrysanthemum

This is a difficult book to read but an important one. It tells the story of the “comfort women”, who the Japanese kidnapped and held as sex slaves to service their soldiers during WWII. “Comfort women” is an offensive misnomer, putting a benign label on the constant sexual and physical abuse of these women.

It is told through 2 points of view:
Hana is a 16 year old haenyeo, a female diver of the sea. One day in 1943, she is approached by a Japanese soldier, and to protect her younger sister, she allows herself to be taken into captivity to be a sex slave to the Japanese army.

Fast forward to 2011 and the younger sister, Emi, is in her 70s and has been living with the guilt of her sister’s sacrifice. She has hidden her past from her children, while trying to find out what happened to her sister.

Each sister is wonderfully portrayed. Hana is subjected to extreme cruelty, yet she finds the inner strength to survive. Her spirit is never broken. Emi lives with her guilt, yet makes a life for herself. Neither sister ever forgets the other and the memories that they have of each other gets them through the pain that they must live with. Other characters are equally perfectly portrayed, even the ones you hate.

The book is beautifully written and tells the story with compassion and sorrow. The scenes of Hana’s captivity are harrowing, yet are so necessary to the story. The sense of place is extraordinary. You are diving with the women as they search for their underwater treasures. You are in the brothel with Hana as she struggles to survive. You can feel her fear and her strength throughout the story.

The author’s note at the end of the book gives a lot of historical information about what happened to these women who were kidnapped. To date, Japan has not apologized or given recompense to these women, who are now dying off. The women “believe that Japan wishes to simplify erase the unsightly history of wartime military sexual slavery as though the atrocities never took place and up to two hundred thousand women did not suffer and possibly die in tragic, heartbreaking circumstances.”

As hard as this book can be to read at times, I absolutely recommend it. It is a must read for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that this is still occurring in the world.

“The list of women suffering wartime rape is long and will continue to grow unless we include women’s wartime suffering in history books, commemorate the atrocities against them in museums, and remember the women and girls we lost ...”