My father talked about a difficult first year on the island of Java when they saw quite a bit of action and sustained a significant number of casualties but for the remaining two years, while they awaited a UN decision after cease fire, things were peaceful and he loved the people and the place and talked about it with warm nostalgia. He always said that he had repeated nightmares of the Nazi occupation that he experienced as a teen but never of his years in Indonesia. Watching The Railway Man and movies like it make me miss my dad and I regret not spending more time with him to talk about the impact of those years on his life and worldview. I liked the movie for making it clear that no matter whose side you may have fought with, all are victims of war, a truth not always captured in film or in the media.
The other night we watched the 2013 movie The Railway Man which is about Eric Lomax a British officer who was captured by the Japanese army and forced to work on the Burma Railway on the Malay Peninsula. The film is based on Lomax’ lived experience and the book he wrote recounting the torture he experienced for building a radio receiver so he could get the BBC news reports and encourage his troops. There are parts of the movie difficult to watch and for me it always reminds me of my dad’s experience of first living under Nazi occupation for 5 years in The Netherlands and then soon after going to Indonesia with the Dutch volunteers who went to defend their colony from the Japanese invasion there.
My father talked about a difficult first year on the island of Java when they saw quite a bit of action and sustained a significant number of casualties but for the remaining two years, while they awaited a UN decision after cease fire, things were peaceful and he loved the people and the place and talked about it with warm nostalgia. He always said that he had repeated nightmares of the Nazi occupation that he experienced as a teen but never of his years in Indonesia. Watching The Railway Man and movies like it make me miss my dad and I regret not spending more time with him to talk about the impact of those years on his life and worldview. I liked the movie for making it clear that no matter whose side you may have fought with, all are victims of war, a truth not always captured in film or in the media.
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