Japanese WWII Major said Dutch women in forced prostitution "have to get used to it"

Japanese Imperial Army Major Okada Keiji said, "The women just have to get used to it," in regards to women from internment camps who were forced into sex slavery during World War II. The camps were established by the Japanese when they occupied the Dutch East Indies during the first half of the 1940s.

During the occupation, the Imperial Army forced people to work as "comfort women" who would serve their troops in Semarang. The quote attributed to Okada was disclosed by Captain Ishida Eiichi, according to a detailed 1946 report regarding his interrogation by the Dutch government's War Crimes Investigation Service.

The report on his questioning was made public on Tuesday by the National Archives.

Ishida said he believed that "volunteers" should be deployed to serve the Japanese soldiers. When the selected women arrived in Semarang, he protested "as I believe they were not voluntary but forced women." This concerned about fifty "girls" who the Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, had taken in buses to Semarang to "get started" there.

They were forced off the bus and Ishida "noticed that the mood of the women was very depressed, that many women showed fear on their faces and that seven or eight women were crying." They really found out on the spot that they would be forced into sex slavery.

Ishida claimed he suggested putting the girls and women back on the bus and returning them. "Okada then laughed at me and told me, 'The women should get used to it.'"

One of the reasons for removing women from the internment camps was that it had become apparent that professional sexworkers were often infected with sexually transmitted diseases, as could be read further in the documents.

Thousands of declassified documents were released by the Dutch National Archives on Tuesday. These can now be viewed by anyone, and without reservations. The organization always holds a "publicity day" on the first working day of the year to show key documents that have been made public from January 1.