抗战胜利七十周年纪念文章系列（二十一） 

荷兰籍白人慰安妇 道出沦为日军性奴的惨痛经历  

    Jan Ruff O'Herne

    Portrait of O'Herne taken at Bandoeng, Java, shortly before the Japanese invasion in March 1942.

    Born January 18, 1923 (age 92)

    Bandoeng, Dutch East Indies Spouse(s) Tom Ruff

    【明报专讯】荷兰军事法庭战后确认日本在印度尼西亚威迫35名荷兰妇女做「慰安妇」，幸而当中的鲁夫—奥赫恩（Jan Ruff-O'Herne）挺身作证，这段历史才为世人所知。奥赫恩生于一个荷兰殖民印度尼西亚的富裕家庭，日军1942年入侵印度尼西亚，21岁的她被拉去当「慰安 妇」，凌辱了3个月。

    荷兰妇女道出50年前秘密

她隐藏秘密50年之久，才在回 忆录《50年的沉默﹕印度尼西亚慰安妇》（50 Years of Silence: Comfort Women of Indonesia）中道出沦为性奴的惨痛经历。美国康涅狄格大学历史系教授杜登（Alexis Dudden） 说﹕「奥赫恩十分清楚，她自己是白人又受过良好教育，人们会特别注意她。她的出现也令『慰安妇』问题不能再被贬低成『亚洲人之间的事』。她也明白，种族偏 见令她的经历格外受注目，因此她总不忘强调，她的恐怖经历是所有受害者同样经历的。」

    Jan Ruff O'Herne

    Portrait of O'Herne taken at Bandoeng, Java, shortly before the Japanese invasion in March 1942.

    Born January 18, 1923 (age 92)

    Bandoeng, Dutch East Indies Spouse(s) Tom Ruff

    Jan Ruff O’Herne (born January 18, 1923)is 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 Japanese Imperial 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".

Biography

    O’Herne was born in 1923 in the Dutch East Indies, a former Southeast Asian colony of the Dutch Empire.[3] During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, O’Herne and thousands of Dutch women were interned at a disused army barracks in Ambarawa, Indonesia.On 26 February 1944, O’Herne and six young women were taken by Japanese officers to an old Dutch colonial house at Selarang, which was converted to a military brothel.On their first day, photographs of the women were taken and displayed at the reception area.Over the following four months, the women were repeatedly raped and beaten.Shortly before the end of World War II, the women were moved to a camp in 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. In 1946 O’Herne married Tom Ruff, a former member of the British military.In 1960 the couple emigrated to Australia.

    Political activism

    In the decades after the war, O’Herne did not speak about her experience until 1992, when three Korean comfort women demanded an apology and a compensation from the Japanese government. Inspired by the actions of these women, O’Herne decided to speak out as well. 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 September 2001 she was awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau by the Government of the Netherlands in recognition of her work as a spokeswoman about the plight of comfort women.

    United States congressional hearing

    On February 15, 2007 O’Herne appeared before the United States House of Representatives as part of a congressional hearing on "Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women":

    Many stories have been told about the horrors, brutalities, suffering and starvation of Dutch women in Japanese prison camps. But one story was never told, the most shameful story of the worst human rights abuse committed by the Japanese during World War II: The story of the “Comfort Women”, the jugun ianfu, and how these women were forcibly seized against their will, to provide sexual services for the Japanese Imperial Army...

    ...I have forgiven the Japanese for what they did to me, but I can never forget. For fifty years, the “Comfort Women” maintained silence; they lived with a terrible shame, of feeling soiled and dirty. It has taken 50 years for these women’s ruined lives to become a human rights issue.

    — Statement by Jan Ruff O’Herne at a 2007 United States congressional hearing

    Selected publications

    • 1994: Fifty Years of Silence

    References

    1.

    •  Pearce, Suzannah (2007). Who's who in Australia. Herald and Weekly Times. p. 1788. ISBN 1740951301.

    •  "Dutch honour rape victim". The Catholic Weekly. Retrieved 12 September 2013.

    •  "Comfort women". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 12 September 2013.

     4. "Statement of Jan Ruff O’Herne AO". U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved 12 September 2013.