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5 comments about Song of Survival: Women Interned, Library Edition.

1. This book was educational as well as an enjoyable book to read. I used this book when studying stories of survival. My students really enjoyed listening and reading it.



2. This is a testimony to the strength of women and the power of music to soothe the soul. Music is a common ground for all people and this true story illustrates how beautiful sounds calm and restore our spirits and, in this story, that of the oppressors. There must be thousands of heroic folks who lived through this terrible war with strength and dignity. I am always glad to find another inspiring story.



3. I have not yet read the book, certainly plan on reading it. I have however attended aplay this past Friday evening. A local Community Theatre presented it and I was in great awe of their performance. They did great justice to the story line and I am so pleased to have been present. At the end I so wanted to stand up with/for them as they closed with The Captive's Hymn. The message of strength, courage, and spirit were felt by all in attendance. Such strength these women had, makes me proud of my female sisters!



4. It wasn't long ago that America watched "Paradise Road" in movie theaters across the country. Audiences were captivated with the story of a young girl and her family's struggle to survive imprisonment by the Japanese. Like many moviegoers today, the audience may not have read the inspirational work behind the motion picture. Helen Colijn's Song of Survival is a real story. The experiences that Coljin documents in her work are real. The author gives her readers a glimpse of her life, and that of the other women imprisoned in Southeast Asia by the Japanese during World War II. Readers follow Colijn through the experiences of a shipwreck, being captured, and being imprisoned for three-and-a-half years.

   Based on her original manuscript written just after her imprisonment, Colijn's story is one of hope and perseverance. Many other books written by soldiers and survivors of World War II are laden with hardship and sadness especially those books detailing the accounts of brutality of the Japanese during their quest to expand their empire westward through Asia such as The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. Colijn's story is unique in that it details true survival of not just the body of the imprisoned, but the soul as well. The women of the camp in which Colijn was imprisoned used music to life their spirits and "free their souls" from detainment.

   Reading a book such as Song of Survival can open up a new door to the way in which we learn about prisoners of war. Colijn describes disease and starvation leading to the deaths of more than one-third of the population of the camp (Colijn 159-169). "Before our internment was over, twenty-six Dutch children lost their mothers," she says (Colijn 162). But all the while, the women kept their spirits from breaking entirely through singing classical songs and even performing vocal concerts among themselves (Colijn129-146). Colijn gives her readers an idea of the sisterhood within her camp among the prisoners. This feeling of family is often discussed within the realm of the formation of a brotherhood-such as is seen in Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose--of soldiers, but is rarely seen in accounts of imprisonment. The work is so poignant because Colijn is able to draw from true personal experiences.

   The author teaches her readers that even during imprisonment, with just a little faith and a little music, souls will have the ability to wander free. By using an effective autobiographical format, Colijn tells her story from a very personal perspective. She recalls the events so vividly that it is impossible for readers not to feel the same emotions that the prisoners felt. Colijn's work is so well crafted that even her feelings of optimism shine through the seemingly unpromising situation. As trite as it may seem, Colijn notes that several women even made "liberation dresses" to wear for the day that their camp was liberated by the Allied forces (Colijn 129).

   A book such as Colijn's is an important element in any study of World War II as it not only brings to light the idea of hope in spite of hardship, but it also shows what seems to be a neglected area of war accounts-the struggle of women as prisoners of war. A personal account of the struggles of being imprisoned by the Japanese that is so seasoned with hope is rarely seen. Colijn serves the women of her camp well with Song of Survival. With the work of one author, hundreds of women's stories will live on to be read by future generations who will bear witness to the events taking place-the immense struggle-during World War II. Song of Survival will live on long after the last survivor passes away. It will carry a message of faith and perseverance for the women in Colijn's camp who kept hope alive through their immense personal strength.




5. When one reads of the hardships that Colijn and her fellow inmates lived through, one expects that they would have focused on survival, and thrown all other concerns to the wind. There were some who did, but not others. Many strove to keep a modicum of loveliness in their lives. Sometimes, all they could do was escape to memories of their past, either through daydreaming or conversation. There were instances, however, of actual impact on their current situation, including a refusal of some inmates to lick their plates(though food was scarce), struggles to live in peace and harmony with fellow inmates, and, most of all, the musical peformances.

   You might imagine that if you were living in a filthy prison camp where people were dropping like flies, you would owe it to yourself to fight for your survival tooth and nail, even against the other inmates, and the furthest thing from your mind would be music. You would need to look out for number one, period. Colijn believes that many more of them might have perished, or, at least, might not have come out as well, had there not been a commitment to community and beauty in that abject misery. In a sense, this book tells about war heroines.

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5 comments about Long Way Back to the River Kwai: Memories of World War II.

1. Loet Velmans fled Holland with his parents in a small boat during the Nazi invasion. They escaped Hitler's persecution of the Jews only to undergo three and a half years of brutal treatment by the Japanese. On reaching England the family decided to continue to the Dutch East Indies, where the parents could find work, and Loet could finish high school. After graduation Loet was drafted into the Dutch Army. On Holland's surrender in Java, he became a prisoner of war. After nine months confinement on Java, Loet was sent to Singapore, where he was confined at Changi. Loet dabbled in the black market, and even opened a 'restaurant' called the Flying Dutchman. In May 1943 he left Changi with 'H' Force, bound for the Burma Railway. After reaching Bangpong Thailand by train, Loet and his group had to march 86 miles to Spring Camp. Loet felled trees, built a section of the access road, removed boulders from the railbed with a hammer and chisel, and lost many friends. After being felled by malaria and dysentery Loet was admitted to the camp 'hospital'. Upon recovery he was assigned to duties as a medical orderly. In discussions with his fellow prisoners Loet formed the opinion that their brutal Japanese guards were representative of Japan as a whole. What the prisoners could not fathom was "...how an entire nation could get its kicks from beating and torturing its prisoners." Upon the completion of their section of the railroad the men from Spring Camp were sent to Kanchanaburi. After a month or two there Loet returned to Singapore. After several months at Syme Road Camp Loet returned to Changi. There he shared a cell in Changi Jail with Rabbi Nussbaum,(a Dutch Army Chaplain) and another Dutch POW. Following liberation Loet spent 5 months in Singapore working on a Dutch newspaper, The Oranje, which was printed on the Straits Times press. In February 1946 Loet returned to Holland where he attended Amsterdam University. There he met his wife, Edith. Edith has written Edith's Story, an account of her life as a hidden Jew in Nazi occupied Holland. In the 1950's the Velmans emmigrated to America, where Loet went to work for the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. From the beginning Loet was heavily involved in Hill and Knowlton's far east business, and frequently found himself traveling to Japan. It is unclear whether Loet ever informed his hosts that he had spent the war as 'a guest of the Emperor.' What is clear is that the Japanese produced a "visceral reaction" in Loet. He felt that: "...the entire Japanese nation had overlooked, papered over, trivialized or forgotten the atrocities committed in the name of its Emperor." During a business trip to Tokyo in the mid seventies Loet spent a night on the town with some Japanese business executives. At a bar in the Ginza district his hosts joined the other patrons in belting out a Japanese song between rounds. After repeated inquiries one of the businessmen finally revealed to Loet that the song was a patriotic military march from World War Two that soldiers sang to raise morale. Loet quickly found himself stone cold sober. Loet reports that in his dealings with the Japanese he "...never lost my compulsion to keep a wary eye on them." He believes that westerners and Japanese still find each other incomprehensible, but has hopes that perhaps his grandchildren's generation might bridge the gap. Readers seeking to learn more about what happened to their relatives on the Burma Railway or in Changi should be advised that Loet uses only the first names of his friends who died in captivity.



2. My grandfather was a POW in Burma and came back with stories that make you shudder and I bought this book to see if there was more I could learn. Although there is preamble on how Velmans escaped from the Netherlands and then moved to Indonesia and his life after the war, the account of treatment by the Japanese and working on the Burma railroad is quite insightful. There is not much on what happened to the Japanese after the war (war crimes) and Velmans does not really give you his opinion of the treatment he received. However, as a personal account, it is an interesting book.



3. The inspiration for the classic book and film "Bridge Over The River Kwai", Long Way Back To The River Kwai: Memories Of World War II is the painfully honest true story of one man's gut-wrenching and nearly fatal three and a half year tenure as a slave laborer for the Japanese army during World War II. A prisoner of war. An insert of black-and-white photographs illustrate this testimony, which presents the unvarnished truth about inhumane, brutal, and ultimately deadly torments the POWs suffered during the course of the war. Long Way Back To The River Kwai also tells of the war's end, the author's rescue and slow recovery from near-death, and his gradual readjustment. The final section tells of the author's business dealings in modern-day Japan, his reflections and friendships, and his observance of the Japanese "cultural amnesia" concerning the war and the atrocities it committed during that era. Highly recommended reading and an impressive contribution to the growing library of World War II combatant memoirs.



4. The inspiration for the classic book and film "Bridge Over The River Kwai", Long Way Back To The River Kwai: Memories Of World War II is the painfully honest true story of one man's gut-wrenching and nearly fatal three and a half year tenure as a slave laborer for the Japanese army during World War II. A prisoner of war. An insert of black-and-white photographs illustrate this testimony, which presents the unvarnished truth about inhumane, brutal, and ultimately deadly torments the POWs suffered during the course of the war. Long Way Back To The River Kwai also tells of the war's end, the author's rescue and slow recovery from near-death, and his gradual readjustment. The final section tells of the author's business dealings in modern-day Japan, his reflections and friendships, and his observance of the Japanese "cultural amnesia" concerning the war and the atrocities it committed during that era. Highly recommended reading and an impressive contribution to the growing library of World War II combatant memoirs.



5. The author gives a stirring and very readable story as told from the eyes of a Dutch soldier captured by the Japanese during the invasion of Java in 1942. Velman gives a very interesting story of his backgound as a Jew in prewar Holland and his families escape from the Nazis only to fall into the hands of the Japanes later.

   Most of his time as a POW was spent helping to build the Thai-Burma railroad. During this period, hundreds of thousands of Aliied prisoners and native slave labors died due to disease, famine, loss of spirit, and, of course, the direct mistreatment of them by the Japanese. All this for a railraod that was barely used and is now overgrown and torn up.

   It is a compelling book and the author is still trying to come to terms with the Japanse to this day.

   I also highly recommend Ernest Gordon's "Beneath the Valley of the Kwai". This book was written much earlier but tells the story from the British point of view. It is now available under the title "To End All Wars".

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