Song Of Survival

This was a good book. It is about Helen Colijn and her experiences being imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp during World War 2. I have read many books about people sent to German POW, Labor, Concentration and Death Camps during the war, but didn't know much about those run by the Japanese.

I did know that the Japanese were very brutal towards those they occupied and imprisoned. This book shows more insight into this brutality and how those interned lived through it.

Helen Colijn was a Dutch woman living in The Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) with her family when the war broke out. Her mother was captured first and the rest of her family (her dad and two sisters) tried to flee to Australia only to have the Japanese sink their ship. They were eventually captured and separated (Helen and her two sisters went to a women's camp and their dad to the men's.) In the camp there were Dutch, Australian and British women who were captured by the Japanese throughout Asia. Along with the "white" women that were imprisoned were also those of mixed European/Asian blood (although many of the last group were given the chance to leave the camp.)

In the camp the women tried to make as much of a life for themselves as they could and as the Japanese allowed. Despite their efforts (the women, not the Japanese) there were numerous deaths and diseases. After several years the war ended and the women were free.

People tend to forget just how brutal the Japanese were (especially to captured soldiers and white people.) The Japanese beheaded and conducted chemical experiments on many captured soldiers because they believed it was wrong to surrender. The Japanese also raped many women and forced lots of them into "Comfort Brigades." The things the Japanese did during the war go well beyond this book.

I believe that the Japanese who lived during the war should be held to the same standards as the Germans for what happened. Many stood by and did nothing while their governments, military and ordinary citizens murdered millions upon millions of innocent men, women and children.