I Bowed So Low, They Didn't Notice Me!

My mother was 17, Dutch and in her final year at school in Indonesia when the war started. Her name was Hester Marie Pino, Hes for short. Her father (my Grandfather)was Mr.Pino and a Dutch Government Official in Indonesia, which was still a Dutch colony at that time. He was due for 6 months homeleave in Holland. His two eldest children were already there at university. He had the incredible arrogance to decide, against everyone's advice, to leave his youngest daughter Hes behind in the care of his assistant and his family, so as to not interrupt her final year at school, as he was convinced that the war would not reach or affect Indonesia. His assistant was Mr. Pas with a wife and two children, a son Bob and a daughter Ine. Bob and Ine were at the same school as Hes. Bob was a few months older than Hes and as it happened he and Hes were in love with each other, so Hes was not entirely sad to say goodbye to her family and move in with her (unbeknown to her) future in-laws. Her father had reassured her, after all that it would only be for 6 months.
When the Japanese picked them up, she went into the camp with her future mother and sister in law. That didn't last long and she was sent to another camp when they split them up because of their different names. She was then all on her own, with no-one to look after her but with no-one to care for either. She often told me that that was what saved her. In the beginning they were allowed to receive mail and she did get a postcard from Bob. It was all but blacked out by the censors apart from his name. I remember the card so well. It was always kept in the wooden box on the sittingroom table. I remember the blacked-out side with the name Bob but not the front picture of the card. Mr. Pas was imprisoned because he worked for the government. That was the worst place to be and we were told that he died just before the end of the war in the Far East from dysentery. My mother always said he was the happiest man in the whole family and loved to joke and tease everyone. Bob (my father) was immediately interned in the Dutch army division in Indonesia and they were very soon captured by the Japanese. He suffered a terrible time and was sent to Thailand to work on the Burma railway. His stories were sad, but this is not about him but about my mother and her extraordinarily positive attitude on how to preserve oneself. She didn't tell my three brothers and me sad stories. She managed to tell the funny ones and the happy moments. Like when she received the postcard from Bob and decided then that he was her prince. She started to think of him as her hero and built him up into the most desirable man on earth. And she had 4 years to do so. She told us about trading some private possessions with the indonesians through the fence in exchange for a live chicken. and how she had to give it back to them so they would kill it for her, in exchange for a leg. she could not bring herself to kill a chicken. I asked her why they hadn't chosen her when they picked some of the young girls to be sent to the whorehouses as prostitutes for the Japanese army. She told me then that it was because she bowed so low that they didn't notice her. As a child I was extremely proud of my mother that she had been so clever to do that. I now know that what saved her was probably the fact that she was not blond and blue-eyed but dark like their own women and therefore not special enough. One of the dutch girls who were picked, was a schoolfriend of my mother's and still goes to the camp-reunions in Holland now. My mother says that she was mentally affected by it and never got married.
She did tell us how she was terribly upset when they were forced to watch one woman being beaten severely after she attacked one of the guards who abused her daughter.
They were liberated and she survived. English troops moved them to Singapore and that was where both, her father who had travelled back from Holland to Indonesia as soon as he could to find his daughter he had deserted and Bob, her 'boyfriend' who had grown into this man she worshipped after surviving the camps, labour on the railway, the transport to japan in the cargohold of a ship through minefields and with cholera on board (when he arrived, half the prisoners with him were dead),physical punishment of the waterhose being pushed down into his stomach which was then filled up and beaten, after being betrayed by a Dutch co-prisoner, a reverend even, hardship in a camp in Japan and the eternal hunger. Hes suffered from beriberi when they found her, but despite her bloated looks she and Bob wished to get married straight away. Mr. Pino, however, in his wisdom, decided it was best to travel to Holland first, get medical treatment for both of them and that, after one year, they could decide if they wanted to get married. They did, in The Hague, had a honeymoon in Paris, a son in their first year and I was born in Indonesia where his company sent him. Soon after that they were transferred to Bangkok and they lived in Thailand for 20 years where they had two more sons. My father used to take us to Kanchanaburi every year when we were kids, where we visited the wargraves and what I remember from those visits was the peace of those rows and rows of white gravestones in those beautifully kept green gardens. He always showed us the inscription 'the unknown soldier' which made a huge impression on us. 'He' (the unknown soldier) lived on forever in my imagination. And he used to take us to the place where the camp was and where he was ordered to carry water up the hill to the japanese guards. in one village they were still using the camp's metal bowls which the prisoners ate out of.
My mother turns 80 this month and we will all celebrate this occasion in Holland with the whole family. My father died at the very young age of 56 of a massive heart attack in his sleep on christmas day. My mother never married again.
I am now British and that is why I told you my family story. I got a British passport when I married an Englishman 33 years ago. We have one daughter who works in London.

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