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You are here: Home / Grace Stories / 30 Days of Light – Japan

March 12, 2011 By Janneke

30 Days of Light – Japan

Japan for me today, sorrow about the severe quake. Here is only one photo of wreckage, and nearby, we hope, are those who are being found and rescued.

Japan through the years for my father and family —  some of  my family are survivors of Japanese concentration camps which imprisoned Europeans in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II. Many died, many were never the same after surviving.

My parents were friends with a Japanese family in our first American home, Provo, Utah. Generations later I know this family may have been re-located there, into Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. I don’t know if  my father and his new friends discussed their mutual and different (very different) camp years.I do know I am proud of he and my mother for their life long quest to befriend everyone, including their Japanese and German friends.

Pappie always said, “I don’t hate the Japanese. (At the time) they were as cruel to each other as they were to us.”

Mammie lived in terror of Germans during “her” World War II in The Netherlands (Holland). Searches for able bodied men, having to pin her eyes away from her father’s hiding place, to live with no electricity, to lack food, this was terrifying. Yet she does speak  of those few soldiers who  looked the other way. My parents had to cope with the best and worst humanity had to offer. I think we all still do face the best and worst of humanity.

Forgiveness. A great book about forgiveness? Forgive for Good, by Fred Luskin. He is the director of the Stanford Forgiveness Projects.

And help, the Google help-link to seeking loved ones in Japan…

http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en

Hug someone you love today.  Make friends, whether oh so the same, or different.

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Filed Under: Grace Stories, Thirty Days of Light, Trauma-Healing Tagged With: California, Dutch East Indies, Forgiveness, Google people find, Japan, Japanese Concentration Camps, Jappen Kampen, Licht, Light, Nederland, Netherlands, Tsunami, World War II

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  1. Janneke says

    March 15, 2011 at 5:08 am

    The scope of the tragedy in Japan is now enormous. I watch Diane Sawyer, reporting on long lines, shortage of water, shortage of food, shortage of food that can be prepared with no water.

    The world watches, sends aide. We hope. I hold my breath, I think its a collective breath for the nuclear energy disasters. I hope and pray for more lives found, lives protected, lives healed, experts to protect all from nuclear fall out.

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Meet Janneke

Janneke Jobsis Brown
Following Shadows is inspired by my own story. As a survivor of an international childhood with parents who were World War II survivors, I know the generational after-effects of starvation and slave labor in Japanese concentration camps for my father, and the terror of Nazi occupation for my mother. I know the challenges of struggling to feel at home across three countries: The Netherlands, Iran and America.

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