by JAMES S. KIM
The Kupferberg Holocaust Center and Archives at Queensborough Community College in New York will house a permanent exhibit to chronicle the history of Asian comfort women, according to New York Daily News.
Leaders from the Asian American community and the center made the announcement this past week, stating that they wanted to make sure the painful stories of former comfort women are not forgotten over time.
City Councilman Peter Koo (D-Flushing) and Sung K. Min, president of the Korean American Association of Greater New York, joined the center’s executive director Arthur Flug on Thursday to show preliminary renderings of what the exhibit would look like.
According to Queens Tribune, Flug said the theme of keeping stories of survivors alive was the chief reason for the Holocaust Center to create the Asian Comfort Women exhibit.
The exhibit will tell stories of women, many from Korea, China and the Philippines, who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II by Japanese soldiers. These countries were occupied by the Japanese army at the time.
Community leaders will look to raise funds for the installation and maintenance of the exhibit, which could cost about $50,000 to $80,000, according to Flug and Min.
Sung K. Min (left) and Arthur Flug. Photo courtesy of New York Daily News.
A rendering of the permanent exhibition at the Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center and Archives, located at Queensborough Community College. Photo courtesy of New York Daily News.
The center had hosted events on comfort women in previous years. It runs a class for local students, who will eventually be allowed to interview a comfort woman at the end of the course. The center has also arranged meetings for Holocaust survivors to meet with a number of aging comfort women.
For the city of Queensborough, this isn’t the first time the comfort women issue has been brought up. Councilman Koo unveiled a controversial proposal in 2012 for a possible comfort women memorial and to rename an intersection as “Comfort Women Memorial Way.” However, community leaders have been unable to find a location for either option.
Top image via Reuters.
