Manila Memories [Paperback]

The four authors who were boys in Manila during the months of the brutal Japanese occupation share their recollections of those terrible times in a simple, poignant narrative. Through the eyes of children, the horror is given a surreal quality, as memories of toys and games are juxtaposed with friends gunned down by sniper fire, Japanese firing squads, neighbors tortured to death, and relatives dragged off to execution. No historian, reporter, or adult stands between the boys and the reader as they tell their story--a story largely untold in the West.
As one who has taught American history, I was familiar with Japanese atrocities during World War II; still, much of what I read here was revelation. This short book would make a good reading assignment for young people studying the period, especially for junior high or high school age students like the boys themselves, and would be a valuable addition to any school library and to any history teacher's bookshelf. Just as Anne Frank wrote of her life under Nazi occupation, these boys tell of their lives under the Japanese.
It's hard to believe anyone survived the devastation of Manila, and even harder to believe that those who did could have grown up to be normal, functioning adults after such trauma. This is the sort of story that makes me swear I'll never complain about anything again. I highly recommend it.

Gripping story of a part of WWII in the Pacific--Manila Memoriesrelates through the eyes and experiences of four adolescents their survival, as best they and some of their families are able, the japanese occupation of Manila during the short-lived, euphemistically-named"Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere"---with control and prosperity flowing to the Japanese Empire. The arbritrariness and inhumanity of this new colonial power defies the imagination, illustrating once again man's potential for inhumanity to his fellow man.A most gripping read in which day-to-day traumatic experiences of these observers, these four innocent young protagonists, are related with heart-wrenching immediacy.

The book "Manila Memories" describes the transition between the years "before the war" and "after the war." However, the book's focus is "during" the war. Because it's about life in Manila it is mainly a tale of life during the Japanese occupation in which the term "liberation" marks the sharp transition to "after the war." Liberation, however, was not a clear demarcation. For most it was a horrendous experience in which lives were forever changed.

I have a particular interest in this subject because it mirrors situations that my family and our friends endured. Many of the events described in the book were events that were discussed around our dinner table. Most of us have heard the stories of the occupation and liberation of Manila from the perspective of MacArthur and various historians. However, the destruction of Manila often garners little more than a paragraph or two in written accounts. This is a different perspective. This is the perspective of the people who survived these horrific events and didn't read about them in books. I use the term "survived" because one didn't just live through those times and events, you survived. This book is the story of four young boys who survived.

Other "survivors" have written about their experiences. Some of the accounts are obviously edited or filled with excessive prose. However, this book is succinct and unpretentious. It is a compilation of the memories of four young boys who were old enough to understand what was going on but young enough to experience a sense of awe and adventure because of the circumstances. The editor and principal narrator is Juergen Goldhagen, a refugee from Nazi Germany who was fortunate in that the Japanese recognized his family as erstwhile allies while ignoring the fact that Juergen's father was a Jew with an expired German passport. The families of the other three narrators, Roderick Hall, Hans Hoeflein and Hans Walser were also treated as allies by the Japanese to a point.

Their stories are told as a series of vignettes of incidents they remembered. Some of the incidents are mundane and typical of young boys - throwing rocks at other boys or breaking things without their parents' knowledge. Other vignettes exemplify the horrors of the times -- Roderick Hall's family was arrested and his mother summarily executed by the Japanese for possessing a "radio." In the cases of these boys, life or death was random and happenstance. Roderick and some other family members were let go. Juergen came close to being accidentally killed a few times by doing things a boy does. For all of them, the shells whistling overhead and flying shrapnel did not respect their nationality. Death could be just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. These boys survived but many of their friends and family didn't during the month-long "Battle of Manila.".

This book is unpretentious and makes no value judgments unlike some books written by those who were adults during those times. Their stories are simple but spellbinding, realistic and intelligible. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what really happened during those dark days of February 1945 when Manila was destroyed before these boys' very eyes. If you don't understand why the terms "before the war" and "after the war" are so significant to my generation and our elders, you will after reading this book.

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