A Gate in the Wall: A Pacific War POW's Secret Diary and a Family's Path Toward Reconciliation

by Melinda Barnhardt

Overview

This book shares the story of the Lindeijers, a Dutch colonial family in Indonesia, first during their time as captives of the Japanese during World War II and then during the postwar decades, as they struggled to come to terms with their wartime trauma. The protagonists speak, as much as possible, for themselves through their documents.

The father, in his prohibited POW diary, records harsh, brutal treatment but simultaneously reveals a level of complexity among his captors that is unusual in war memoirs. The mother's farewell letter dictated before her death eschews hatred, focusing on a way for her family to move forward. And finally, in recorded testimony, the eldest son grapples with the trauma of his family's imprisonment, but also the Dutch oppression of Indonesia, stimulating a remarkable response in Japan and Indonesia today. The family's story traces a pathway from wartime hatred to postwar reconciliation—across generations and continents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476696973
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	04/16/2025
Pages:	239
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.48(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Melinda Barnhardt is an independent scholar, writer, and lecturer in the Netherlands and Japan and has given colloquia for history and East Asian Studies at Wittenberg University in the U.S.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword by James L. Huffman
Preface
A Note on the Text
Part I: The Trauma of War—“Whatever Is Torn Away”
 1. Ohashi, Japan, 1944—Revisiting the Collapse of a World
 2. Bandung, Java, 1942—A Sundering of Ties
 3. Transport Overseas, 1942—“The Most Horrible Thing”
 4. Ohashi, Japan, 1942—Between High Mountains, Snow
 5. Ohashi, Japan, 1943—“We Rise in the Wind’s Eye”
 6. 1 March 1943—A Single Day’s “Enormous Range of Thoughts”
 7. Spring and Summer, 1943—“It Lasts So Terribly Long”
 8. Kamaishi, Fall–Winter 1943–44—A Space Where There Was None
 9. Ohashi, 1944—“Quite Something Has Emerged”
10. Ohashi, June 1944–April 1945—“Amicitia Vitam Ornat”
11. Ohashi, April–August 1945—Edge of the Inferno
12. Ohashi, August–September 1945—The Slow Return
Part II: Traumatic Memory—Echoes from Past to Present
13. Delft, 1992–95—A Son’s Memory Work
14. Delft to Japan, 1995—A Gate in the Wall
15. The Unexpected Importance of the ­Once-Secret Diary in the Twenty-First Century
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

This matter-of-fact yet remarkably nuanced secret diary of a Dutch POW—Wim Lindeijer—in a Japanese prison camp in WWII foregrounds the everyday brutality of war alongside the mundane mechanisms that make that brutality survivable. That diary alone is reason to read this book, yet it is what comes after the diary concludes and Wim returns home that makes this book truly remarkable: the story of how this POW’s family collectively comes to make sense of their wartime experience and the role Wim’s narrative ultimately plays in promoting understanding of the atrocities of war, both in the Netherlands and in Japan. This beautifully edited work is a must read for anyone interested not only in the trauma of war, but also in how we can translate that trauma into healing.”—Cynthia Richards, Veler Endowed Chair in English, Wittenberg University and co-editor of Early Modern Trauma: Europe and the Atlantic World

From the Publisher