Date of letter:Not mentioned
Address of author:Yu County, Yangquan City, Shanxi Province
Date of event:1992-06-03
Location of event:Not mentioned
Name of author:Zhang Shuangbing
Name(s) of victim(s):Shanxi Province
Type of atrocity:Others, Sex Slaves(SS, OT)
Other details:I want to help Mr. Tong and do my part in claiming compensation. I lived in a remote area, an “unpopulated area” controlled by Japanese where the “Burn All, Kill All, Loot All” policy was implemented. Human tragedies happened constantly. Thousands of gun rooms were set up. Many women who were forced into “comfort women” are still alive. I hope such information will help Tong Zeng in some way. The work of comfort women data collection started here. Note: envelope missing
Respectable Comrade Tong Zeng:
I saw your name from the newspaper. Your great efforts to overcome hurdles for our Chinese people and fearless spirit to trek rugged terrain have touched me deeply.
I am also Chinese. You know well how we younger generation take upon ourselves about the humiliations and calamities our older generation’s went through. So, I am writing to tell you that I want to help. Please reply and give me instructions. Although I live in a remote place where the transportation and communication is not convenient, it is one of the places where the invading Japanese army marked as “Extermination Zone” and implemented the “Three Alls Policy” (Kill All, Burn All and Loot All). Three massive killings were launched in a place within a diameter of 25 km, in which countless people were killed and thousands of houses burned. Regarding the issue of comfort women, as far as I know, there are three of them (over 30 years old) in our village with a population of only 300. There is an old woman over 70 years old in another village about 5km away from mine. She was raped by a row of Japanese soldiers in a block house. Countless women were raped and killed in the village. A girl (only 12 years old) was raped, stabbed, stuffed with radish in vagina, and thrown into a well. The Japanese people brutally killed common people by drowning them (the Zhaojiashe Tragedy), burning them (the Shangrentou incident) and shooting them (the Yangmaoge incident), turning the rear areas of the Communist Party into “No man’s land”.
The above information is what I know and hear. Hopefully, it will be of help to you. I don’t know what else to say since this is our first correspondence. Please guide me and correct my errors if any.
I will stop here. I’d like to provide any help for this cause.
Yours faithfully,
Meng County, Shanxi Province, 045107
Zhang Shuangbing
June 3