"Forced to become a comfort woman
How did I feel? I felt as if we were taken here to be killed. I could not but weep. No one talked. All were weeping. That night we slept there and in the morning we were put in those rooms. Soldiers came to my room, but I resisted with all my might. The first soldier wasn't drunk and when he tried to rip my clothes off, I shouted "No!" and he left. The second soldier was drunk. He waved a knife at me and threatened to kill me if I didn't do what he said. But I didn't care if I died"

Kimiko Kaneda was born in Tokyo on 22 October 1921. Her father was a Korean and her mother was a Japanese. Just after her birth, she was taken over to the relatives of her father in Korea. Her father became a priest but he was arrested because of his disrespect toward Japanese shrines. When she was 16 years old, she went to Seoul for better employment on the recommendation of her friend who worked as housemaid for a Japanese family. Led by a Japanese, she was put on a train to go from Seoul to Tianjin, China, then from Tianjin via Peitan to Zaoqiang. There she was forced to be a comfort woman for the Japanese military. She was named Kimiko Kaneda. Later she moved to Shijiazhuang. Her life during childhood was difficult and solitary. Out of wish to forget her real pains, she became an opium addict and in 1945 was allowed to return to Korea. After the war she had to go through an operation in which she lost her womb. In January 1997 Harmoni Kimiko Kaneda became one of the first recipients of the atonement project of the AWF in South Korea. She passed away on 27 January 2005.