Citation

Oliver L. J. War Cult. Stud. 2017; 10(4): 272-286.

Affiliation

University of Leeds, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/17526272.2017.1385265

PMID

30046355

PMCID

PMC6044054

Abstract

Western depictions of captivity across Southeast Asia during the Second World War are dominated by the images of military prisoners of war who were captured by Japanese forces following the fall of Singapore in February 1942. Much less widely known are the histories of romushas: forced labourers from Java who were recruited in their millions and suffered extreme deprivation and ill-treatment through systems of hard labour and corporal punishment. This article explores how the second-generation work of Dutch photographer Jan Banning retraces the rare stories of some of these romushas, and how - with a lack of public places of remembrance - the boundaries between survival and memorial are blurred through the layered functions of Banning's portraits.

Language: en

Keywords

Jan Banning; Second World War; Southeast Asia; photography; postmemory; prisoners of war; romushas