Gim Soonduk Halmoni
84 years old
(1921 - 2004)
Biography
Kim Sundeok was born in 1921 in Uiryeong, Gyeongsang Province, in Southeastern Korea. In 1937, the year she turned sixteen, she was tricked by a phony call for the recruitment of nurses and made a sexual slave of the Japanese military in Shanghai. Later she was moved to Nanking, and in 1940 she was able to return to Korea with the help of a Japanese officer.
In 1991, she saw Kim Haksun on television, the first woman to give public testimony in South Korea about her experience as a military sexual slave of Japan. After making a public declaration of her past, she moved in to the House of Sharing in October of 1992. She painted“ Unblossomed Flower,”a painting that became a symbol of the movement on behalf of the victims of Japanese military sexual slavery. She was not deterred by her old age and was always in motion, working hard and keeping a busy schedule, and so she played the role of leader among the women at the House of Sharing. She participated in the Wednesday demonstration out front of the Japanese embassy without fail. She did not neglect her farmwork. She industriously worked on her paintings when she had time. As a young girl she aspired to be a traditional entertainer and went to an arts school for future female entertainers, and so she often spoke with pride of her skill at speaking and at all manner of songs.
On Wednesday, June 30, 2004, the day of her unflagging weekly journey to Seoul to protest, Kim Sundeok passed away
Testimony
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