Her bedside table is stacked with Japanese magazines and figurines in kimonos. The walls bear pictures of Mount Fuji. Shizue Katsura, 96, is among 19 Japanese women who are spending their final days in an unlikely place: a nursing home in South Korea, where lingering anti-Japanese sentiment has helped keep the women in obscurity.
Katsura said. Japan is a foreign country to me. Thousands of Japanese women like Ms. When World War II ended and Korea was liberated, many stayed with their husbands in Korea, while others fled back to Japan, fearing violence from those looking to avenge the brutal colonial rule. Or, as in Ms. Many also lost their husbands during the Korean War, which lasted from until By the time many tried to return to Japan, it was too late. Japan and South Korea did not re-establish ties until , and, even then, some of the women had no relatives to sponsor their return and resettlement.
But society has paid little attention to these Japanese women, some of whom were abandoned by their families in both countries and had to live with neither a Korean nor a Japanese passport.
When this happens, they are in tears, as if they are getting their life, their identity, back. Song said.
While sitting in a wheelchair, Ms. Her husband died of alcoholism decades earlier, she said. She once raised tobacco and livestock in southwestern South Korea, and then sold vegetables in the capital, Seoul, before failing health forced her to move into the nursing home nine years ago.
