Product Description
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II. Living in Japan is a small group of foreigners who have established residency many years earlier. Most of them have business… More >>
Somehow, We’ll Survive: Life in Japan During World War II Through The Eyes Of A Young Caucasian Boy
“Somehow We’ll Survive” answers many missing questions for other long term residents residing in Japan. Living in Yokohama for 30+ years myself and listening to the stories of other “Sempai” residents still left many unanswered gaps in the history of the foreign community living in Japan. “Gaijinbotchi” or foreigners cemetery in Yokohama took most of the points Mr. Sidline explains with them to their graves. Others survivors simply did not want to talk about. Some felt or still felt not to complain as to not upset their Japanese hosts.
One of the points George brings up well and still presides today is the hidden or created backgrounds of many of the foreign residents still exist today. In the very same areas Mr. Sidline explains in the book have not changed much even today. Christians, Jews, Muslims of multiple nationalities still coexists as they have for a hundred years. They don’t generally talk about how or why they came to live in Japan but enjoy gathering and conversing together. The “Don’t Ask” policy is still prevalent to this day.
Although Mr. Sidline lived in the Caucasian community during the war he fails to mention the racism experienced by other Asians living in Japan during the war. Sent off to fight or sent down to the coal mines as slave labor. There were also Caucasians that fought for the Japanese, a point missed in most historical publications. Germans that were also volunteered (not by choice) or Americans that wanted to protect their adopted country. I detected a bit of bios in this book and felt know details were purposely left out of the text.
The end of the book simply ends leaving many questions unanswered and simply stops. A bit as if I’m simply tired and do not wish to continue writing. The last chapter is a simple half page. A following short one page epilogue adds a few comments but does not tie up the book. Basically we left in 1954 and that it, end of the story. Never mentions in the past 65 years whether he has returned to Japan since then or not.
Overall I loved the book and highly recommend to people who have lived in Japan or someday will take up residence. I am forced to give this book a 4 star rating only because I feel certain points were perhaps a bit too biased. Not all German residents of Japan were “Jew Haters” or Nazi’s. There were victims of all nationalities and religions and too much finger pointing does not help the wonderful job Mr. Sidline did on this book.
Rating: 4 / 5
Memoirs of childhood are always poignant, especially when they recount times of war or great upheavals. Children always manage to see and remember the tiniest little details overlooked or forgotten by adults, and always manage to see the bright and shiny moments through the clear lens of wondrous innocence.
And so it is with this book. The only things missing are more details, and one wishes there were more, especially of the story of how author George Sidline ended up marrying his childhood girlfriend from Japan. It takes a close reading of the few sentences he devotes to this topic to realize that he and his future wife Simonne must also have been together for a period of time in Karuizawa, once both families had been forced (for different reasons and at different times) to leave Kobe.
George Sidline was the son of stateless parents of Russian Jewish origin who had emigrated to Japan for business purposes. His descriptions of the horrendous firebombings (one napalm bomb landed directly on their house, nearly incinerating them), and of the severe food shortages in the latter periods of the war, seen through the eyes of a child, are not quite as graphic as other descriptions of this period.
The small Caucasian population in Japan led completely separate lives from ordinary Japanese. And so this memoir is not that useful to see what happened with the ordinary Japanese during WWII, but it is interesting to see how this small group was able to manage during the war. What is striking is the deferential way that the Japanese government continued to treat its foreign Caucasian residents as long as they were not citizens of countries that were at war with Japan. One irony mentioned is that while Japan treated its Chinese and Korean neighbors with utmost savagery, it was extremely courteous to its small Jewish population, allowing it the same freedoms as the other Caucasians despite frequent exhortations from its Nazi allies. And then there is the curiosity of the pampered Nazi population of Karuizawa, finally expelled by the American occupation in 1946.
All in all, an interesting read, about a tiny facet of WWII in Japan.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is a true story that I have not heard told. Its an easy compelling read that I could not put down. I would highly recommend this book. I loved the fact that its a true story and that its told through the eyes of a young boy.
Rating: 5 / 5