经济学人下载:哭泣的白手帕(1)

Jan Ruff O'Herne, war-rape victim of the Imperial Japanese Army, died on August 19th, aged 96 

简·拉夫·奥赫恩是日本帝国军队的战争强奸受害者，她于8月19日去世，享年96岁。

All sorts of objects lay in Jan Ruff O'Herne's dressing tabledrawer. A necklace of dark amber beads. Silver work from Java where she had been brought up, the daughter of Dutch colonialists. A belt embroidered with tulips from the country she had never seen until after the war. Costume jewellery, gloves, lotions and potions. Her daughters Eileen and Carol loved to riffle through the drawer as children, and she gladly let them.
各种各样的东西都放在简·拉夫·奥赫恩梳妆台的抽屉里。一条琥珀色的项链。还有来自她小长大的爪哇岛的银饰品，她是荷兰殖民者的女儿。一条绣着郁金香的腰带，是她在战后才看到的。服装珠宝，手套，乳液和药剂。她的女儿艾琳和卡罗尔小时候喜欢在抽屉里翻来翻去，她很乐意让她们这样做。

The things often summoned up her Java stories of gamelans, sate-sellers, cicadas and warm rain. But when one day they found the embroidered white handkerchief folded at the bottom she snatched it away. That was a rare moment, in 50 years of silence, when her secret was almost out. Other things she could disguise as phobias. Her unease when night fell, and she had to draw the living-room curtains. Her terror of going to doctors, even when she was quite ill. And, perhaps hardest to explain, her dislike of flowers.
这些东西经常让她想起她在爪哇岛的故事，故事里有加麦兰乐器，各种商品，蝉鸣声和温暖的雨。但是有一天，他们发现了底部折着的绣花白手帕，她便把它夺了过去。在50年的缄默中，这是一个罕见的时刻，她的秘密几乎被公之于众。她还可以伪装成恐惧症。夜幕降临时，她感到不安，她不得不拉上客厅的窗帘。她害怕去看医生，甚至是她非常病重的时候。还有可能是最难解释的一件事，她不喜欢花。

On her birthday she would beg friends and family not to give her any. They were such a waste of money, so soon over. But this was not the reason. Flowers reminded her of the day in 1944, in a rambling house in Semarang, when she and six other Dutch-Indonesian girls realised that the place they had been abducted to was a Japanese military brothel. The Japanese had invaded Indonesia two years before, driving all the Dutch settlers into labour camps where they were kept in squalor, close to starvation.
生日的时候，她会求朋友和家人不要给她送花。买花就是浪费钱，花那么快就凋谢了。但是这不是她不喜欢花的理由。花会让她想起1944年的一天，在三宝垄一间杂乱的房子里，她和其他六名荷兰-印尼女孩意识到她们被绑架到了一家日本军队妓院。日本人曾在两年前入侵印度尼西亚，把所有的荷兰移民都赶进了劳改营，他们被关在肮脏的地方，几乎要被饿死。