Lost Childhood: My Life in a Japanese Prison Camp During World War II

Synopsis

A MYSTERIOUS TELEPHONE CALL, AN EARTHQUAKE, JAPANESE FIGHTER PLANES, AND A DEADLY EXPLOSION . . . It was a day unlike any other that four-year-old Annelex Hofstra had ever experienced. It turned her comfortable, carefree world upside-down and forever changed her life. Immediately after invading the island of Java, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), the Japanese began rounding up all the Dutch citizens, stripping them of all but the barest necessities, and shipping them off to prison camps. Lost Childhood is a vivid real-life account of how a little Dutch girl, along with her mother and grandmother, managed to survive the horrors of life in these camps during World War II. For three and a half years they were treated as less than human by their captors and lived in a state of constant fear--fear of being punished, of being separated from each other, of starvation, and of dying from infection, malaria, or some other dreaded disease. The Allied victory in 1945 opened the prison gates but did nothing to erase the mental and physical damage caused by life in the camps. For 60 years the author has kept her silence, dealing with her past pain by pushing memories of it to the furthest reaches of her mind. Now she wants to share her story not only to honor all who suffered or died in the camps but also to encourage anyone who feels frightened, trapped, abused, or abandoned to never give up hope.

Copyright:

2008

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

114 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781426303210

Publisher:

National Geographic

Date of Addition:

01/30/12

Copyrighted By:

Annelex Hofstra Layton and Herman J. Viola

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Children's Books, Military, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs

Grade Levels:

Fifth grade

Submitted By:

Jamie Yates

Proofread By:

Regina Alvarado

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.