'One day I'm going to tell my story and people will be interested'  and I said, "Sure Mum!'

In 1992 my mother, Jan Ruff-O’Herne, after seeing Korean women making appeals for justice on television, decided to break her fifty year silence about her experience of enforced prostitution at the hands of the Japanese military during their occupation of Java in World War ll.

50 YEARS OF SILENCE
a documentary film by Ned Lander, Carol Ruff and James Bradley.

The film spans five generations, from my mother's colonial life in Java, recorded on old home movies, through the war, to a new start in England as a young bride, and our family migration to Australia in 1960.

It shows how one woman's testimony changed recorded history and became an inspiration to others. It was awarded Best Documentry at the AFI Awards, and a Logie Award for Best Documentry.

Distributed by Ronin Films.
Email:admin@roninfilms.com.au

FIFTY YEARS OF SILENCE
by Jan Ruff O'Herne.

This memoir is a moving account of the terror my mother survived as a young 'comfort woman' and is a tribute to her inner strength and survival and her subsequent tireless work to protect the rights of women in war.

Published by Random House, Australia.
www.randomhouse.com.au