‘Comfort Women’ statue unveiled in SF Chinatown

Former "comfort woman" Grandma Yong-soo Lee reaches out to touch a section of the Comfort Women Memorial statue after it's unveiled at St. Mary's Square park in Chinatown in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. During World War II, thousands of women were captured and used as sex slaves by the Japanese military. less Former "comfort woman" Grandma Yong-soo Lee reaches out to touch a section of the Comfort Women Memorial statue after it's unveiled at St. Mary's Square park in Chinatown in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, ... more Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2017 Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2017 Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close ‘Comfort Women’ statue unveiled in SF Chinatown 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

Four bronze women took up their positions in a Chinatown plaza Friday to bear silent witness to the wartime atrocity inflicted on hundreds of thousands of their sisters.

It was the unveiling of the long-awaited “Comfort Women” sculpture in San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Square to honor the Asian women who were forced to become sex slaves by the Japanese army during World War II.

“We all share the same humanity,” Yong-soo Lee, 89, a surviving comfort woman, told a crowd of about 500 that turned out for the unveiling. “This is an issue for everyone. This is about a sincere apology from the government of Japan.”

Lee, who was kidnapped from her home in Korea at the age of 15 and forced to work in a Taiwan brothel that served Japanese soldiers, fought back tears as she said that the experience was “too much to talk about” and that she is “still suffering from the pain and torture.”

The bronze sculpture by Carmel artist Steven Whyte depicts three young somber Asian women on a pedestal and a fourth, older woman gazing up at them from below. The powerful sculpture sits in the southeast corner of the square, in the shadow of Financial District skyscrapers that seem small by comparison.

The artwork, two years in the planning, remained the subject of controversy even on its unveiling.

In a statement, Jun Yamada, the consul general of Japan in San Francisco, said such memorials “seem to perpetuate and fixate on certain one-sided interpretations, without presenting credible evidence.”

Those words drew ire from 89-year-old Lee, who, through an interpreter, replied, “What kind of bull— is that?”

She and her fellow survivors, who call themselves “grandmas,” continued to demand an official apology, investigation and reparations from the Japanese government.

“We hate the crime,” Lee said, “not the (Japanese) people.”

A small army of elected officials was on hand, along with retired Superior Court Judges Lillian Sing and Julie Tang, who had led the battle to win approval for the public art.

“Japan is trying to cleanse and erase history,” Sing said. “We want to pay honor to the victims.”

The crowd waited for nearly two hours for the speeches to end and for Lee and the other dignitaries to yank a golden cloth from the sculpture, to applause and cheers. Everyone in the crowd who made it through the ceremony was rewarded with a free souvenir shopping bag depicting the sculpture.

Jonathan Fortun of San Francisco called the sculpture “natural, fitting and moving,” and said it makes you “feel the atrocity.”

“Japan didn’t want this here, but it belongs,” he said. “It’s important.”

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF