Atrocities can never be forgotten: POW

A Dutch veteran of the Thai-Burma Railway describes the horrors of being a prisoner of the Japanese

Many people have saluted a World War II veteran after he wrote to China's ambassador to the United Kingdom to reveal his harrowing experience at the hands of the Japanese military.

Fred Seiker, 98, who lives in Worcester, England, saw an article by Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming in The Daily Telegraph about Japan's refusal to face up to its aggressive past and serious threat to global peace, and wrote to the ambassador, who replied to him.

Seiker survived action in the North Atlantic and on the Thai-Burma Railway during World War II.

Seiker characterized his letter to Liu "as a small token of support for your article in the name of my friends who were murdered by the Japanese military whilst working on the Thai-Burma Railway".

The ambassador "wrote about his worries and concerns about (Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe in Japan and I understood at once his worries and concerns. So I decided to write a letter to the ambassador." Liu's article, published in The Daily Telegraph on Jan 2, criticized Abe, who visited the Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class-A war criminals are honored, on Dec 26 last year. Liu accused Abe of deliberately raising tensions in Asia and putting the world on a "perilous path".

Abe has openly questioned whether Japan was an aggressor in the war. Critics see this as an attempt to airbrush Japan's aggressive past and colonial rule.

Meanwhile, Abe tries everything he can to amend Japan's pacifist constitution and expand the country's military, analysts say.

"When the war finished, they (Japan) signed an agreement that they would never start a war again but they have never agreed that they lost the war because of inferior military conduct," Seiker says.

"Since then, over many years they have changed the lessons in schools and colleges, making out that all the bad things they did didn't happen so the students don't have a clue what their grandparents did to us, and now they want to re-militarize.

With his letter, Seiker included two copies of his book Lest We Forget, in both English and Chinese. The book, published in 1995 and now in its fourth edition, details the horrors he saw as a Japanese prisoner of war, which included horrendous torture and many prisoners being worked to death.

Many of those deaths happened on the notorious Thai-Burma Railway, a 415-kilometer line between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma (now Myanmar). The line was built in 1943 to support Japanese forces and was closed in 1947, but one section was reopened in 1957.

About 180,000 Asian civilian laborers and 60,000 Allied POWs worked on the railway. About 90,000 Asian civilians and 12,399 POWs died as a direct result of the project.

"I felt that whatever I had to say in the book had to be be honest and defendable," Seiker says.

"When I set out to write it, I thought it should inform the public at large about what happened, in particular during the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway because very little was known about it at the time."

Born in the Netherlands in 1915, Seiker attended school primary in Rotterdam, and went on to study at the Rotterdam College of Marine Engineering.

He served in the Dutch merchant navy before and during the war. In peacetime he mainly served on ships plying the Far East, South Africa, Canada and the routes to eastern seaboard of the United States. During the war he served on the North Atlantic routes and between the Far East and the Britain.

In 1942 Seiker was caught up in the Japanse invasion of Java. Unable to leave the island he volunteered for the Dutch armed forces on Java and subsequently became a POW of the Japanese.

He was shipped out to Changi prison in Singapore, from where he was sent to Thailand to work as a slave laborer on the Thai-Burma Railway and spent the remainder of the war there.

"I looked at myself in the mirror many times and said to myself, "'What did I do? How lucky have I been?'"he says.

"Considering the chances I had taken in the convoys and the chances I did not take, it was not my doing that I came out of there alive, believe me. It was a miracle."

Liu read Seiker's letter and book which he found overwhelming and heart-wrenching.

In his reply, he wrote: "People have a right to know what happened in that tragic past and should not forget what horrendous crimes Japanese militarists are capable of.

"To forestall the resurrection of militarism, there is a compelling need to record history as it is, and truly learn the lessons."

Seiker says the Chinese edition of his book was translated by Dr Bee Sun Lu of Houston, Texas, who also strenuously opposes Abe's policies. Her father was executed by the Japanese military police together with all the Chinese staff at the Chinese embassy in Manila.

Though World War II ending on Aug 15, 1945, Dutch POWs were not repatriated until May 1946. In that year Seiker arrived in England where, after a year recuperating, he set out to build a career in engineering. He worked in various capacities with well-known engineering organizations and concluded his career at project management level. The watercolour sketches, based on memory, represent either personal experiences or events he witnessed during his time as a POW.

"I had for many years harboured a quiet anger at the way in which the Burma and the Thai railway theater of war were, almost deliberately, ignored by various governments," Seker says. "I wanted to show people what really happened during that dreadful period, particularly the younger generation. If I could alert them to the dangers of appeasement at all cost, then perhaps a repeat of such a horrendous crime could be averted."

Next year marks the 70th anniversary of victory in the war against fascism.

"I am deeply moved by Fred Seiker's story and also salute his outstanding fortitude and exceptional humanitarianism," says Zhang Kexin, 22, a Chinese female student who studies in the UK.

Jin Chen, who works in Beijing, says he is looking forward to reading Seiker's book and paying respect to the veteran.

Seiker says he is happy to share with what happened in the war against German and Japanese fascism, which he described as the most brutal in history.

"I am often asked by well-meaning people whether I can forgive or forget. The question of forgiving is perhaps one of religious belief or conscience, but to forget is a dangerous road to tread. Nothing that life throws at a survivor of the Thai-Burma railroad can ever be as daunting as the building of the 'Railway of Death'. Forget? Never."

Zhou Heran contributed to this story.

zhangchunyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/04/2014 page29)