Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Indonesian comfort women during the Japanese occupation, 1942-1945.

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A very well written yet emotional notes about the history of Jugun Ianfu/Comfort Women during the Japanese colonization period. It was very touching, especially for the first half of the book whereas the focused is on all of the girls, even the underage one, is being taken as the Japanese promised them to continue their study in Singapore. It’s just to turned out that these girl is being lied to and used to as the Japanese’s soldier pleaser. It was also, one of the sins that Japan did and will never be confessed by them, sadly. This novel is the true embodiment of “book will open the other side of the history” as I feel for 12 years in school and learning history, no teacher has ever gotten deep on explaining how Japanese treated the women during the colonization. And by the other half of the book, the focused is shifted to Pram’s and his friends’ experience during their exile in Pulau Buru, and how they discovered the Javanese women that was once the Jugun Ianfu in Pulau Buru. All those women once was someone’s daughter and after the defeat of Japanese in WW2, they just leave the girls in the place where they’re put into without even thinking to bring the girls back home to Java. And the even most heartbreaking part is all of those girls also felt ashamed to go back to their home as they felt dirty for what the Japanese did to them. I really hope this book can also be recommended in schools or uni as I feel like people, especially women, needs to see of what was the dark history of Indonesian women itself. We need to remember them.

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