WORLD HISTORY AND FACTS

Dutch Japanese Prisoner of War__world history and facts Jan Bras was the son of a Dutch planter in Indonesia. He was the youngest child of eight children. In World War II he became a Japanese prisoner of war (POW).  Elizabeth Day wrote in The Guardian: “From the formative ages of 18 to 21, Jan Bras was a Japanese prisoner of war.  When the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies during the second world war, he was transported by “hell ship” and cattle wagon to work on the construction of the Burma railway.  Later, he was interned in a camp and sent to work in the perilous coal mines at Fukuoka. After liberation in 1945, he was one of the first to walk through a decimated Nagasaki after the detonation of the atomic bomb.  [Source: Elizabeth Day, The Guardian, July 26, 2015 ] “He witnessed unimaginable terror, brutality and death. Throughout it all, Jan Bras survived.  For years Bras did not talk about what had happened to him....But then, about 10 years ago, the m...