No colors, no words, only black and white lines depicts a demonic Japanese soldier and a terrified young Korean girl. She was dead, with hands covering her face under a bloody sakura tree; he was laughing and still trying to touch her naked body.

"We don't need any words, we can see the image. I can feel the sad and violence in these pictures. I keep saying to my friend: let's leave here or my eyes will be full of tears," said US audience Ann Mekaskle after watching a cartoon exhibition featuring Korean sex slaves, or comfort women, for the Japanese military during World War II.

More than 20 cartoons portraying Korean comfort women are displayed in Seoul on Saturday amid South Korea's "March 1st Festival" marking the country's 1919 nationwide uprising against Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.

The exhibition, titled "I Was There Without Me," displays comfort women's voice recordings, drawings and photos, as well as videos produced based on the testimonies from the victims.

"Through this exhibition, we want to enhance the recognition of the comfort women issue around the world, expanding social consensus on this urgent and unsolved historical issue and urging Japan to acknowledge and apology for its past mistakes," said Kim Wang-sik, director of the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History.

This special exhibition is co-hosted by South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family with three different sections at the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in central Seoul from March 1 to April 13.

The first section exhibits documents proving the history of sexual slavery victims drafted for the Japanese Imperial Army and drawings of themselves. The second part uses two cartoon video clips telling "Her story" and "Unfinished story".

The third section shows more than 20 cartoons that have been displayed during the 2014 Angouleme International Comics Festival, one of the world's largest cartoon festivals, in France earlier this year.

"This exhibition has achieved a big success in France as many audience know Japan's war crimes in the past through this exhibition. We hope we can bring these cartoons to more countries in the world to help more people know the truth," said Park Jae- dong, one of the artists of these cartoons.

Lee Yongsu, an 85-year-old comfort woman who has been tortured as a sex slave by Japanese kamikaze soldiers when she was only 15 years old, still suffers from pains and illness left by the sad past. This exhibition recalled both her painful memory and willingness to defend her rights.

"I cannot bare Japan's repeated attitude and activities of denying history. For our next generation and our country's peaceful future, I must solve this problem before I die," she said.

More than 200,000 young women, many of them South Koreans, were forced into the sex slavery at the Japanese military brothels during the devastating world war triggered by the Japanese militarists. Among the 237 South Korean women who identified themselves as former sex slaves, only 55 are still alive.

However, Japan has recently attempted to retract its past apology for sex slaves. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Friday said the government will set up a team to re- examine an official statement apologizing to Korean sex slaves of the Japanese military during World War II, made by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993.

South Korea denounced Japan's latest move as an attempt to deny its wartime atrocities.

A South Korean foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity that the Japanese government must not take benighted and thoughtless actions, which will inflict "unbearable pains and scars" once again on the South Korean victims of sex slavery.