평화와 여성인권활동가..96세로 운명
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호주에서 위안부피해 사실을 알리며 평화와 인권활동가로 활약한 얀 루프-오헤른 할머니가 19일 아델레이드에서 별세했다. 享年(향년) 96세.
얀 할머니는 1923년 1월 18일 네덜란드 식민지던 인도네시아 자바에서 출생, 성장하여 가톨릭 사범대학을 다니던 1942년 끔찍한 비극을 맞았다. 아시아태평양전쟁이 일어나 네덜란드가 패배하며 자바 섬을 점령한 일본군에 의해 암바라와 포로수용소에 監禁(감금)되었고 21세이던 1944년 스라망에 설치된 일본군 위안소 ‘칠해정’에서 강간과 폭행을 당했다.
전쟁이 끝난 뒤 영국군 장교와 결혼해 영국에 살다가 1960년 호주로 이주해 살던 얀 할머니는 1992년 ‘일본군 성노예 문제에 대한 국제 전쟁범죄 재판’ 증인으로 나서, 유럽인으로서는 처음으로 일본군 성노예 피해자라는 사실을 밝혔다.
그 뒤로 세계 곳곳을 다니며 전쟁의 진실을 알리고 평화와 여성 인권을 지키는 활동을 펼쳤다. 얀 할머니는 네덜란드 여왕과 호주 정부, 교황 바오로 2세로부터 훈장과 爵位(작위)를 받았다.
2007년 ’호주 위안부의 친구들’ (Friends of Comfort Women of Australia) 초청으로 시드니에서 개최된 국제 여성의날 행사에 위안부 피해자인 길원옥 할머니(한국) 황우슈메이 할머니 (대만)와 함께 참석했다. 세 할머니의 사진은 얀 할머니 자서전 ‘나는 일본군 성노예였다’ ( 2018년 한국어 번역판, 삼천리 출판사) 표지 사진으로 사용되기도 했다.
시드니 평화의 소녀상 실천위원회(대표 염종영 이하 시소추)에서는 얀 할머니 비보를 접하고 오는 27일(화) 아델라이드에서 치러지는 얀 할머니 장례식에 한인 조문단을 파견하기로 하고 송애나(멜버른 거주)씨가 弔詞(조사)를 하기로 했다.
또한 시소추는 24일(토) 오후 5시부터 스트라스필드 한인교육문화센터 사무실(208/4 The Boulevarde 대한관광여행사 사무실 위층)에 분향소를 설치하고 오후 7시30분 추모식을 거행한다.
시소추는 “일본정부의 사과를 평생 요구하시다가 먼저 우리 곁을 떠나신 호주 일본군 ‘위안부’ 피해자 얀 할머님의 명복을 빌며 제2차 세계대전 종전 74년이 지나도록 아직도 실현되지 못한 정의를 위해 28년간의 싸움을 이어가고 있는 일본군성노예제 피해자들의 고통과 용기를 기억하고, 정의로운 문제해결의 과정에 많은 한인 동포들과 호주의 여러 시민들이 함께 할 수 있기를 바란다”고 말했다.
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얀 루프 오헤른(Jan Ruff O'Herne 1923년 1월 18일 ~ 2019년 8월 20일)
네덜란드계 호주인 얀 루프 오헤른 할머니는 일본군 위안부 피해자로, 스마랑 사건 피해자이다.
1942년 네덜란드령 동인도(인도네시아) 수녀원에서 생활하던 중, 일본군에 의해 포로수용소에 감금됐다. 1944년 일본군 위안소 스마랑 사건 피해를 당했다. 전쟁이 끝난 뒤 영국군 장교와 결혼했고, 1960년 호주로 이주했다. 1992년 자신이 일본군 위안부 피해자라는 사실을 고백했다. 이 사연은 1994년 영화 '50년의 침묵'으로 제작됐다. 2007년 미국 하원 위안부청문회에서 증언했다.
Jeanne Alida "Jan" Ruff O'Herne AO (18 January 1923 – 19 August 2019) was a Dutch Australian human rights activist known for her vocal campaigns and speeches against war rape. During World War II, O'Herne was among young women forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. Fifty years after the end of the war, O'Herne decided to speak out publicly to demand a formal apology from the Japanese government and to highlight the plight of other "comfort women".
O’Herne was born in 1923 in Bandoeng in the Dutch East Indies, a former Southeast Asian colony of the Dutch Empire. During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, O’Herne and thousands of Dutch women were forced into hard physical labor at a prisoner-of-war camp at a disused army barracks in Ambarawa, Indonesia. In February 1944, high ranking Japanese officials arrived at the camp and ordered all single girls seventeen years and older to line up. Ten girls were chosen; O’Herne, twenty-one years old at the time, was one of them. O’Herne and six other young women were taken by Japanese officers to an old Dutch colonial house at Semarang. The girls thought they would be forced into factory work or used for propaganda. They soon realized that the colonial house was to be converted to a military brothel. O'Herne got the signature of each girl that night on a small white handkerchief and embroidered it in different colours which she kept for fifty years and referred to it in her writing as precious "secret evidence of the crimes done to us".
On their first day, photographs of the women were taken and displayed at the reception area. The soldiers picked the girls they wanted from the photographs. The girls were all given Japanese names; all were names of flowers. Over the following three months, the women were repeatedly raped and beaten.
O’Herne fought against the soldiers every night and even cut her hair to make herself ugly to the Japanese soldiers. Cutting her hair short had the opposite effect, however, making her a curiosity. Shortly before the end of World War II, the women were moved to a camp in Bogor, West Java, where they were reunited with their families. The Japanese warned them that if they told anyone about what happened to them, they and their family members would be killed. While many of the young girls’ parents guessed what had happened, most remained silent, including O’Herne.
After World War II ended and O’Herne was liberated, she met Tom Ruff, a member of the British Military. The two were married in 1946. After living in Britain, the couple emigrated to Australia in 1960 where they raised their two daughters, Eileen and Carol. In letters she wrote to Tom prior to her marriage, O’Herne had alluded to what had happened to her during the war and asked for his patience if they were to be married. For decades after the war, O’Herne continued to have nightmares and feel fearful, especially during sexual relations with her husband. They had a good marriage but O’Herne’s experience as a comfort woman continually affected her life.
Political activism
In the decades after the war, O’Herne did not speak publicly about her experience until 1992, when three Korean comfort women demanded an apology and compensation from the Japanese government. Inspired by the actions of these women and wanting to offer her own support, O’Herne decided to speak out as well. At the International Public Hearing on Japanese War Crimes in Tokyo on December 1992, O’Herne broke her silence and shared her story. In 1994 O'Herne published a personal memoir titled Fifty Years of Silence, which documents the struggles that she faced while secretly living the life of a war rape survivor.
In 1998 the Asian Women's Fund project for Dutch victims was formally established. Although 79 Dutch women accepted Japan's apology and atonement money, O’Herne considered the fund an insult and refused the compensation offered, wanting Japan to come to terms with its history and offer a sincere apology. From 1992 O’Herne continued to work for the “plight of the Comfort Women and for the protection of women in war”. In September 2001 she was awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau by the Government of the Netherlands in recognition of this work.