In 1943, the Japanese army swept through Yangquan Village and captured five women, the youngest of whom was only 13 years old. In those turbulent times, the flames of war mercilessly devoured the lives and dignity of innocent people. What a tragic fate did this group of young women endure? How did they struggle to survive and regain hope in a desperate situation? Their experiences are like a mirror that penetrates time and space, allowing us to glimpse the cruelty of war and the preciousness of human nature. Step into their stories, feel those embarrassing details, and understand the desperate situation of the year...... Can their experiences only be forgotten in the long river of time? Or will it finally shine again in the cry of justice? Let's find out.
Peace is broken: the village of Yangquan is devastated
At that time, it was the height of summer, and Yangquan Village, Yuxian County, Shanxi Province, was peaceful and quiet. The villagers follow the same routine for thousands of years, working in the fields all day long, earning a meager but warm and happy livelihood. The smoke rises, and the fragrance of rice fills with abundant hope; In the chirping of birds, the children frolicked and exuded vigorous vitality; When the sun sets, men, women and children gather in groups, either busy arranging dinner, or chatting leisurely, a leisurely scene.
No one would have expected that such a comfortable life would be completely broken. On a gloomy afternoon in June 1943, a commotion could be heard in the distance outside the window. The villagers, who had been working among the ridges, raised their heads uneasily, only to see a thick smoke of gunpowder gradually approaching in the sky. Then there were bursts of creepy horns and horses' hooves, and the sound of the camel horse in the village was huge, which made people feel awe-inspired.
"The devil is coming! Run! ＂
When the village was in turmoil, the horrors were loud, and the terrifying scene was already overwhelming. The army was overwhelming, and groups of Japanese troops swarmed in, armed with shotguns, horses and bows, and their eyes were fierce. The sound of gunfire, cries, smoke and firelight exploded in unison, destroying the peaceful scene in an instant.
The villagers panicked and desperately fled, and the scene of scattering and fleeing once made people feel that the end of the world was coming. Some children were lost in the smoke and dust, some female dependents could not bear to leave when their loved ones were seriously injured, and some strong men struggled to fight the Japanese army...... All kinds of tragic scenes are intertwined into a mess, as if the hell of Yama is reproduced in the world.
In a matter of moments, the entire Yangquan Village was reduced to a sea of fire, full of the Japanese army's rampant plunder, murder and arson. The once peaceful and beautiful country life seems to have become an unattainable dream.
Wan Aihua is captured: start a life of captivity
Wan Aihua was only 13 years old at that time, and she was the youngest girl in the entire Yangquan Village. Due to the poverty of his family, he was sold by his parents as a child daughter-in-law when he was 4 years old and married into an elderly family named Li Wuxue in the village. Although she was a bought daughter-in-law, her husband was obedient to her, treating her as a pearl in his hand, never letting her do housework and concentrating on doing nothing at home.
However, this life of abundance and comfort came to an abrupt end on that day. When the sweeping army returned, Wan Aihua and her husband were so frightened that they fled from the house and hid in a ditch by the river in the east of the village, hoping that the Japanese army would leave as soon as possible.
Who knows that fate always plays tricks on people, just in the hiding place of the dark ditch, Wan Aihua was soon questioned by the atrocity of the Japanese army about the whereabouts of the villagers' hiding place, and had to cry under torture to confess the hiding traces of her accomplices.
As a result, the entire hiding place was completely destroyed, and Wan Aihua and the other 4 women had nowhere to hide, and they were immediately captured by the savage Japanese army.
handcuffed, let Wan Aihua and her husband cry in horror, the Japanese army ignored them at all and forcibly parted them with life and death. Wan Aihua wails bitterly when she hears her husband being taken in another unknown direction, and realizes that the two will have to spend a long time separating in the future.
In this way, Wan Aihua and the other four women were put into a truck and driven to a secret stronghold more than 20 kilometers away from the village under the cover of guns.
By the time everyone reached the stronghold, night had fallen. The Japanese were unreasonable, separating the five women into several dark wooden huts with debris piled up, with almost nothing but a few bundles of straw. The doors were firmly sealed, the windows were nailed, and the interior was dark and eerie.
This is exactly where the nightmare of all love flowers begins. She and several others were locked up in this cold, damp hut for 21 days, as if they were in endless darkness. Without warm clothes, without food, he was almost suffocated to death in this small and dark space.
Wan Aihua often seeped into the sporadic moonlight, and saw the Japanese soldiers standing guard tightly, and her heart couldn't stop trembling. She clearly realized that she had completely become a prisoner of the Japanese army, and she did not dare to imagine what kind of torture and torture she would endure.
Sure enough, an even more terrible nightmare soon followed. In the dark night, Wan Aihua was often awakened by the crying next door, which turned out to be the tragic scene of several other women being abused by the Japanese army.
Then came his own bad luck. Groups of Japanese soldiers began to take turns breaking into Wan Aihua's hut, tearing her clothes with rude movements, laughing and scolding at her. In just a few moments, the smell of blood filled the room, and the air was filled with the wailing and wailing of all love flowers.
In the darkness, Wan Aihua witnessed her chaste youth being brutally exploited and ravaged like this, and her heart seemed to collapse as if the world had collapsed, and all thoughts were lost. She could have foreseen that she would be tormented in this boundless darkness of despair....
After several escapes: difficult years when life hung by a thread
After 21 days of abuse in the Japanese stronghold, Wan Aihua finally got a chance to escape suddenly one night.
That night, the air raid sirens sounded, and the bomber's engine rumbled deafeningly. The Japanese army was in a hurry, and fled for their lives in a panic when they heard the sound, and they even neglected the guards of Wan Aihua and others. Taking advantage of this chaos, Wan Aihua and several companions finally broke through the cage and escaped with all their might.
However, just a few steps away, the bomb had already smashed their heads and faces. Wan Aihua felt a buzzing in her ears, and a fire rushed to the sky in front of her, and thick smoke billowed in to obscure their vision, almost drowning them alive. It wasn't until a moment later that they came to their senses and quickly took advantage of the chaos to escape.
In this way, the group flew away without looking back, escaped from the encirclement, and began a difficult escape life in the midst of artillery fire. They hid all the way to Tibet, sometimes hiding in the barren mountains and mountains, sometimes lurking in the dense forests, relying only on the desire for life to survive the hunger and cold.
Once, they couldn't find their way through a forest for a long time, and they almost fell to the ground from exhaustion. At this moment, a despondent beggar suddenly appeared in front of him, he was haggard and hurried, and he did not forget to share their last dry bite of food even though he was about to flee for his life.
Wan Aihua took the moldy old corn and couldn't help but burst into tears. She thought that in this war-torn land, there were still such good people with empathy and love, and her life could not be easily given up no matter what.
Since then, Wan Aihua gritted her teeth, survived in hunger and cold, and finally left the extremely dangerous area step by step and came to the relatively gentle inland countryside. However, the doom was not far away, and her life on the run finally came to an abrupt end.
One day, she was begging in a village when she was suddenly monitored by the Japanese army. At that time, Wan Aihua was already skinny and skinless, and the Japanese army recognized her at a glance as the girl who had been abused in the stronghold.
As a result, Wan Aihua was captured alive again and escorted back to the new Japanese garrison. There, she was tortured and humiliated even more brutally than before, and almost died.
She looked up at the sky several times, breathing weakly, hoping that she would return to heaven like this. However, after a torture, she was finally rescued by a Chinese soldier surnamed Zhang, and she was saved from death.
But Wan Aihua's nightmare is far from over, and this is only the beginning of a difficult escape......
A permanent scar: a trauma that destroys both body and mind
After being rescued by Zhang Junjun, the news of Wan Aihua's rescue spread quickly in the nearby villages. Soon, she was taken in by a kind aunt and started a new life.
However, Wan Aihua's body and mind are long gone. The experience of just a few months completely destroyed this once innocent young daughter.
Physically, she was covered in bruises, as if she had been stripped of her flesh and skin. At that time, she was skinny, yellow and thin, and frail and sickly. What's even more terrifying is that due to repeated rape and abuse, her reproductive organs were almost completely destroyed, and she has completely lost her fertility since then.
This is an irreparable painful trauma in Wan Aihua's life. At that time, she was still too young and should have entered the stage of marriage and childbearing, but now all these bright prospects have come to naught. As a woman, her body was already mutilated, and she could no longer enjoy the joy of having children.
Every time I think of this, Wanai Hua is in pain. Once the shadow appeared, it was like a pair of invisible hands tightly grabbing her throat, suffocating her breathlessly. She would often crouch alone in the corner, unable to stop her miserable whimper, and her heart would dry up like ashes.
In addition to the physical scars, Wan Aihua's inner world is even more barren and ruins. She was loveless, reticent, and rarely willing to talk to people. Sometimes she suddenly wanders to other places, and just with her empty eyes, people can feel an indescribable desolation.
Some people advised her to cheer up and marry someone in the past. But Wan Aihua just shook her head with those gloomy eyes, confused and silent. Her heart is like stagnant water, she has long buried all the hopes and longings of the past, and she no longer has any desire for this world.
Those evil Japanese soldiers took almost everything from Wan Aihua: youth, hope, dignity, and even life. Perhaps, there is nothing left to fill the eternal scars in her heart and let her come out of the nightmare trauma.
The rest of her life was destined to be forever twisted and dark, like her ruined genitals, forever at the age of 13.
The Search for Justice: A tireless cry for justice
More than 70 years have passed, and Wan Aihua and several other victims have entered their twilight years. The traumatic memories of that year have long been blurred and hazy under the washing of time.
However, the scars of history have not been healed. In the dead of night, those cruel images will still reappear in Wan Aihua's mind from time to time: beacon fire, wolf smoke, rain of bullets, crying and screaming...... The brutal scenes are still as vivid as yesterday. What followed was endless pain and bitterness, almost crushing her life.
For years, Wan Aihua has been seeking a path to justice. She was convinced that the Japanese soldiers should pay for their absurd acts for their heinous crimes.
In 1987, a momentous opportunity finally came. At that time, the Lao government publicly determined that there had been cases of human trafficking of military prostitutes ranging from 100,000 to 200,000 old francs, and that the victims were mainly from Chinese mainland. As soon as this news came out, it immediately caused an uproar in the Chinese society.
As a witness, Wan Aihua resolutely stood up and broke the silence of decades. She began to speak out in the media, demanding that Japan apologize for the crimes of the year and bring justice to all victims.
"I almost died, but now I have finally regained my life, but I have to spend the rest of my life to seek justice for more of my compatriots. Wan Aihua said in an interview, "Even if every step is difficult, I will never give up my insistence on defending my rights." ＂
In this way, Wan Aihua actively participated in the movement to accuse and defend the rights of sexual crimes of the old Japanese soldiers. She and several other fellow travelers began to call for revelation of the horrific atrocities that had taken place.
However, even though the road to rights protection is full of thorns, Wan Aihua has never hidden from the world. Sometimes she publicly complained, sometimes lobbied people of insight, and tirelessly campaigned for justice. Even when threatened and intimidated, she was never afraid and spoke out without hesitation.
In this way, Wan Aihua opened a magnificent but thrilling axiom road. Her iron will and courage were touching, and she finally made her voice heard all over the world.
Gradually, more and more people began to pay attention to this heinous crime, and the international community condemned it. In 2015, Japan formally apologized to the families of the victims and the Chinese for the crime, and promised justice for the victims.
end
This is undoubtedly a great victory for justice over darkness! Wan Aihua seems to have raised her eyebrows since then, and the grievances and pain of decades have finally been completely resolved. She said: "I was devastated by sin to the point of dying, but now I can defend glorious justice with my own strength, which is the greatest consolation from God. ＂