81-year-old Mrs. Elizabeth van Kampen left a comment on an earlier post linking to her website, which retells her childhood in the Dutch East Indies and her experience in a Japanese prison camp during World War II.
It also goes into her efforts to receive compensation for her suffering from the Japanese government.
Please, give it a read.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
My neighbor back in the states was a survivor of this holocaust, unfortunately his little sister and parents weren’t, they died in the camp under obviously horrendous conditions. Being that he has been diagnosed with Lymphoma, compensation will be a little too late for him.
I skimmed through but read the part about the Japanese prison camps. Bad stuff!
The Kempeitai were abusive in their home country, too. After WWII, former Kempeitai officers were pretty much ousted from society. So were many officers from the military. To be precise, the Americans led the initiative, but the people welcomed it. No wonder, the military was quite abusive and cruel. “Letters from Iwo Jima” does provide a view of how life might have been as a conscript. Constant beating, forced suicide missions, lack of food and ammunitions, those kind of things. With that kind of a military, it’s not surprising that they abused POWs as well.
It’s not far-fetched to say respect for human dignity came with the Americans after WWII, and I kind of believe this is one of the reasons you don’t see much anti-Americanism in Japan.
I kept reading and did not stop until the end. It is quite a read.
I get this odd feeling that this sort of story will happen again, in another incarnation, some time sooner than later.
This faint fictional plot wandered through my head after reading it: America goes down in Soviet-1989 style economic collapse and pulls out of everywhere, the world goes to hell in a handbasket, the Norks blast south, and lots of expats come to know ‘special camps.’
Imagine Pawi with his boot in your face, forever.
#4
It did happen in former Yugoslavia. And it was ethno-hate that led to it. One of the reasons why I think long-held ethnic grudges are poison.
For anyone interested in more in the first-hand experience of Dutch women in Japanese prison camps in Indonesia, I highly recommend the book ‘Song of Survival’ by Helen Colijn. In some ways similar, in some ways very different.
i just read the other string of comments from the eariler post, and found it strange how everyone was really against pawi, and missing his point. koreans don’t do themselves justice by getting so worked up when it comes to their arguments, however, to make an issue of the very few koreans within the japanese army who were most commonly forcibly drafted from their homeland who commited horrific acts when the main perperators still deny wrongdoing, is just not understandable, and it’s similar in spirit to the war movies that the japanese still make which ALWAYS portray themselves as victims of the war, which is the precise kind of thing which make its neighbours angry in the first place.
the issues are never black and white, but different shades of grey and a book such as the following
http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/05/reviews/990905.05ohagt.html
by chang rae lee? might give a beter understanding of what the “koreans within the japanese army” mean…
the point i am making is that these korean men within the japanese army could not be used as an ammunition against those koreans who feel that japan has done wrong against them, yet that’s what seems to be happening.
Quite a moving story. Thank you, Mrs. van Kampen, for posting a link to it. Your account of your return to Indonesia brought a few tears to my eyes.
It isn’t very often that I click on a link here and wind up spending the next hour or so reading it over. Elizabeth van Kampen tells a fascinating story. Very moving. It would make for an incredible film.
This is an interesting personal account of life in colonial Indonesia both before and during the Japanese occupation in WWII. If you are interested in this type of work, you’ll really enjoy it. She’s obviously wrting to the reader, and not simply creating a diary of events, yet it’s still very personal.
Unfortunately, I had to stop before I’d gotten any further. Given Mrs. van Kampen’s sense for writing details and personal anecdotes, I plan on reading the rest tonight.
Re #9 GVI:
The film “Paradise Road” written and directed by Bruce Beresford and featuring Glenn Close, Cate Blanchette, and Jennifer Ehle, is a fictional rendition of the story of Dutch and British women in a Japanese prison camp in Sumatra, based on the same story as Helen Colijn’s autobiographical book mentioned above. But I suspect you are alluding to not only the prison camp part of the story, but the larger context of Elizabeth Van Kampen’s life in Indonesia. I’d also like to see such a film made.
Wha? Both of the above posts made by “Skookum” were not made by me. Not that I have any disagreement with the opinions expressed therein – but just think that whoever wrote those posts should be credited with them. Or are there now two Skookums (Skookae?) who are registered on this blog?
Anyway, this morning I read the whole story – very fascinating – she writes from the heart. I had plenty to do but couldn’t stop reading….
Reminds me of Neville Shute’s “A Town like Alice”, wherein the Japanese in Malaya kept shifting a group of Women and Children prisoners from one camp to another, as the numbers dwindled. Interestingly enough, the female character ends up much like Mevrou van Kaampen. That was redone some years ago as a television miniseries starring Bryan Brown as the Aussie POW.
Didn’t know there was another person using the “skookum” name. I take it that you’re from the Pacific Northwest. I’ll change my name the next time I post. Endshuldigung Sie, Bitte!
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