2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This panel explores issues of the documentation and preservation of testimonies of wartime sexual violence from comparative perspectives, focusing on the cases of sexual violence in Japanese and Nazi controlled territories during World War II.  In each national and/or cross-national context, scholars and activists face challenges. In Japan there is little support from either the government or academic institutions. The task is being carried out by non-governmental groups that often lack sufficient financial and institutional support. In South Korea where this issue has strong support from the government and general public, it is overburdening for the support groups to combine their efforts in activism, research, and preservation. In the United States, both within and outside the academia, the general topic of Holocaust has generated substantial interest and support for many years but insufficient attention has been paid to the issue of sexual violence against Jewish women until recently. As survivors of wartime sexual violence are now dying it is particularly important that we work out strategies to preserve their testimonies and other source materials. Please schedule this panel on other days than Saturday (June 3^rd) to accommodate the observation of Shabbat by Jewish participants if the program committee accepted our proposal. (Note: Find chair for this panel. Also, there are two important comfort women support groups in South Korea and in Japan that could not decide to participate until later. If one or two of these groups decided to come, Yuki Terazawa will withdraw to make space for them.)