Women Beyond the Wire

The book is about women who ended up in Japanese camps from the Singapore/Malaya area.

Early on it describes the incredible lack-of-reality among the people who lived in Singapore and the Malaya area. They were part of a society dominated by whites, particularly British whites, and who had Chinese and natives as servants. The whites led a very posh existence and were totally contemptuous of the Japanese army that was reported landing.

One can see how the Japanese used the argument that they were “freeing the native peoples from white domination” when you read about how the white society basically lorded it over everyone else and were so sure of themselves and their superiority that they waited until too late to actually get people away from the danger.

Unfortunately, the Japanese were even worse masters than the colonial powers, as the natives of the countries they “liberated” soon found out.

The book tells the story of the various men and women who fled Singapore and other areas but, for one reason or another, failed to escape and became prisoners of the Japanese. There is no doubt whatever, no possibility of question, that the Japanese internment camps were of the nature of atrocities.

The book describes the hardships that the women and the men had to suffer, the book concentrating mainly on female prisoners. Lack of food leading to virtual starvation; filthy living conditions that helped lead to the spread of a variety of diseases; primitive medical care, if even that much, and, all the time, the behavior of the Japanese guards who could, on occasion, show kindness, but who would more often show a bestial side of human behavior.

The book points out that the male prisoners had a 55% death rate, and the female prisoners had a death rate of about 25%, but the figures depended upon nationality somewhat.

The fact that must not be overlooked is that all of these people were innocent civilians, people who had nothing to do with the war being waged. These were all people who should have simply been sent back to their own countries or to a neutral country but who, instead, ended up in disease-ridden, bug-infested filth holes that killed many of them.

This is a well-written book but very, very upsetting.



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