Anette+Lisle+-+May+23,+1941

= May 23, 1941 = I am miserable. I have heard nothing from my family, and nothing from Alex. I’ve been supporting myself by giving the majority of the rubber I produce to the Japanese army. When I see myself packing my products so that the Japanese can collect them, I feel empty inside. I want to die. I am supporting devils who basically destroyed my country, murdered so many innocent lives and have been treating the remaining people as animals; I feel like a criminal. At least there is one thing that I can do to make up for guilty actions. Recently, with the little money I have left, I tried to help people who are in the concentration camps here in Vietnam. Someone told me that there were two main concentration camps where thousands of people are being transported to be used as slaves. There is one in Saigon and one in Hanoi from what I know (I usually help the prisoners in Hanoi since it’s closer to me). My job is to gather medicine, clothing, food with a couple of others and send the goods to the camps where the people are building mostly airfields everyday without resting like human machines. I heard that the scenes of torture and cruelty, of living skeletons and starvation leave people speechless. I’ve only heard stories from those who actually deliver the supplies but even just hearing and imagining what’s happening in those camps........... One of the deliverers told us that people there are treated even worse than animals. I even heard that not only Asians but Americans, Australians, Dutch and even British (there is some talk that there are some soldiers from Singapore.... I just hope Alex isn’t one of them) are also suffering in those camps. I just hope all of this will end soon. War is devastating. I’ve lost almost everything I have because of the Japanese. But at the same time, I am still considered as one of the lucky ones. At least, I can eat and get basic necessities through the dirty money I receive from the Japanese. At least I am alive although sometimes, I wish I were dead.

citation : http://eujinmsia.blogspot.com/2009/01/japanese-invasion-money-of-indochina.html