VIDEO FOOTAGE OF COMFORT WOMEN BEING RESCUED

[Anchor Lead]

KBS has discovered a video of Park Yeong-sim’s rescue from the Japanese sex slavery camp at China's Songshan in Yunnan Province. Park was the pregnant comfort woman in the famous picture whose testimony later revealed to the world, the existence of comfort women and the atrocities committed by the Japanese military. The footage vividly shows the young Park’s reaction at being rescued by the allied forces. Here's more

[Pkg]

A young girl stares into the camera. Her hair is disheveled and she looks confused. Chinese soldiers, apparently excited from winning the battle, pull her arms up. The girl raises her arms and shouts out cheers repeatedly. This is Park Yeong-sim, better known as “the pregnant comfort woman.” She was taken by the Japanese military at age 17 and suffered for five years before being rescued. Park went to North Korea thereafter and dedicated her life to exposing the wartime atrocities committed by Japan. She passed away in Pyongyang in 2006.

[Soundbite] PARK JEONG-AE(RESEARCHER, NORTHEAST ASIAN HISTORY FOUNDATION) : "She appears to be Park Yeong-sim, judging by her clothes, hair, and stomach. It's a very emotional moment."

The footage shows another woman held captive with Park. She can hardly stand on her own. Her face, severely wounded and bruised. The video is believed to have been filmed on September 7th, 1944. It was the day when the U.S.-Chinese allied forces captured a Japanese military camp in Songshan in the Chinese province of Yunnan. The soldiers found the women who barely escaped the camp with their lives. The man who filmed the scene is believed to be a U.S. military photographer named Edward Fay. He was the one who took the 18-second footage a Seoul National University research team found in 2017. The 2017 video contained the scenes after the rescue… While the recent one features the rescue itself. It shows the women’s appalling conditions in more vivid details. Park Yeong-sim is seen only in this video. She is not in any other video taken later, because she was being treated for stillbirth right after the rescue.

[Soundbite] HAN HYE-IN(RESEARCHER, ASIA PEACE AND HISTORY INSTITUTE) : "We can really feel their pain. The film vividly shows the fear in their eyes."

Historians believe the video would serve as invaluable evidence refuting Japanese scholars’ claim that Korean women volunteered to become comfort women for the Japanese military.