This has been a very interesting journey for me. When I first started working on this project, in October last year, I had an idea to do something along the lines of generations, and the women in my life who have impacted and influenced me in my family history. As I developed this idea it became about my Oma (grandmother) and my Omama (great grandmother) and their experience as internees in the Japanese war camps in what used to be The Dutch East Indies.
I spent a lot of time researching the subject and reading the stories of survivors of the camps and the war memoir written by my Omama. I had always been impressed with how my Oma had coped in such circumstances. She was only in her teens when war broke out and she had just made it into the Olympics as a swimmer but went to the camps instead. She still got to swim, but for a far greater cause, through the sewers passing notes between the male and female camps.
I was struck by her courage and that of the other women who took risks to get medicine for fellow campees and the strength many of these women exhibited in such bleak circumstances that kept them hopeful and resilient.
My aim with 'Eve in Exile' is to capture that hope, resilience and courage that these women displayed. There is something inspiring and transcendent about an unbroken spirit!
