Eric Lomax (1919–2012)

[The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness] by Eric Lomax
3.5★'s

What's It About?
It's a remarkable memoir of forgiveness―a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. Eric Lomax, sent to Malaya in World War II, was taken prisoner by the Japanese and put to punishing work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. After the radio he illicitly helped to build in order to follow war news was discovered, show more he was subjected to two years of starvation and torture. He would never forget the interpreter at these brutal sessions. Fifty years after returning home from the war, marrying, and gaining the strength from his wife Patti to fight his demons, he learned the interpreter was alive. Through letters and meeting with his former torturer, Lomax bravely moved beyond bitterness drawing on an extraordinary will to extend forgiveness.

What Did I Think?
Actually I never set out to read the book. I picked it up and started skimming through it and found myself stopping an reading whole passages which soon advanced to entire pages. So I said to myself..."self..why in the world don't you just start at the front and read this thing."

The book is told from a personal perspective. This is not fiction in any stretch of the imagination. This is the memories and nightmares of a man that faced the horrors and madness of war while a prisoner of a ruthless enemy and lived to tell of it. Ultimately it tells the message of forgiveness and reconciliation. In this day and age the author probably would have been said to have autism. The man is remarkable when you consider the huge suffering that being a prisoner of war would impose on anyone...but a person with that condition would find their situation unbearable at it's best. It is astonishing testimony to this man's spirit that he survived to be such a courageous and insightful man. This has been made into a film by the same title that is available on DVD. I haven't watched it but I understand that the film makers took a great deal of liberties with the facts. show less

This was an amazing book about the torture and abuse POW's suffered at the hands of the Japanese during WW 2, building the folly known as the Burma railway.
The author Eric Lomax suffered horrendous beatings and torture when a map of the railway was discovered in his kit bag. For the next 40 years these men who suffered this abuse tried to go on and live life. This was before people were ever treated for PTSD, or anything else like it. What these men had to deal with is impossible to show more imagine.
The author is actually rather restrained when detailing the torture and conditions they suffered, the book "The Narrow Road To The Deep North" while being a historical fiction book details the conditions far more vivid than Mr Lomax, the author of this book, does.
The hatred that the author holds towards the Japanese is understandable but after more than 40 years he manages to start to get the kind of medical treatment and therapy he truly has needed all along. At this time he finds out "the interpreter" a Japanese soldier he has particular hatred for, has written a book, and decides he needs to confront him.
As painful as this confrontation will be Mr Lomax goes through with it and finds a way to forgive.
This book also touches albeit lightly on the fact that the Japanese, were never made to own up/pay up for the atrocities they committed in Korea, China, and the building of the Burma railway. The mindset of the emperor and the military, the belief that they were superior to all other people, cultures, and countries and their blind devotion and belief that they would prevail, is another example, of why this portion of WW2 needed to come to an end as soon as possible. The author thankfully does not go into any analysis or give his opinion regarding the use of atomic weapons on Japan. show less

Parts of this were very hard to read because of the brutal treatment of our POW's by the Japanese during the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway. Mr. Lomax shares his memories very matter-of-factly which makes them even more chilling to me. Repatriation did not bring healing to his mind. Doctors had not yet identified post-traumatic stress syndrome, but he was a prime example.

I'm not being a spoiler (because of the subtitle) to point out that one of the most touching moments was the show more meeting of Lomax and a Japanese interpreter from one of the torture sessions. The beauty of forgiveness is that it is not so much for the one who is forgiven, as for the one who forgives. show less

This is an account by a former Far Eastern Prisoner of War of: his early life; his wartime experiences working on the notorious Burma Siam railway, including savage beatings and other tortures; and his post war attempts to process his anger and desire for revenge, his nightmares and what we would now called PTSD affecting his life and relationships, until he was able to come to terms with it eventually by tracking down and meeting one of his Japanese interrogators (Takashi Nagase, an show more interpreter, in fact) and their being reconciled with each other, Nagase having spent decades of his post-war life trying to bring about reconciliation between the bitter war-time enemies. This encounter was the subject of an award-winning TV documentary.

Lomax was keen on trains from an early age but followed his father into the Post Office in Edinburgh when he finished his education. Born in 1919, he was of the generation that went straight into the war, and was taken prisoner when in February 1942 the Japanese stunningly captured Singapore, the centre of the British Empire in the Far East. He writes clearly and non-dramatically about the horrific deprivations, the near starvation, dirt, beatings, water torture that came with being a prisoner of war, especially after he was arrested for being one of a party in possession of a radio. More than these even, was the uncertainty even about the immediate future and the sense of sheer arbitrariness of knowing that your entire future life was out of your hands - so the complete depersonalisation and deprivation of personal agency was almost the hardest thing to deal with. In his post-war career, Lomax worked in the last colonial administration of Ghana. It was only later in his 50s and 60s that he started to be able to talk about his experiences, initially only to fellow ex-POWs, then later on to those campaigning to support the victims of torture. His personal wish to gain closure as to whether he and his fellow sufferers had been betrayed or whether the discovery of the radio was pure chance, led to discover Nagase in the end. The last couple of chapters of the book are a moving account of the transition between a desire for understanding and revenge through cycles of grief to acceptance, friendship and forgiveness. This was a great read. show less