All Are Guilty

by AGNES NEWTON KEITH

1

I DO not accept war as an unavoidable evil: I have seen that it is so evil that it must be avoided. It has no better side. It is equally demoralizing to both victor and vanquished. I believe we should give as much in human effort to avoid war as we give in fighting.

As victors the Japanese entered Borneo in January, 1942, and as victors they remained there until August, 1945. During this period they killed because it is a soldier’s business to kill; they beat, abused, pillaged, and laid waste because such conduct is a soldier’s pleasure.

I was one of the vanquished then. When I went on the streets I was humiliated, spat at, ridiculed, my face was slapped. When I remained in my home the victors entered it. They took my belongings; they mistreated my servants; they threatened my child; they struck me, and by further acts of violence they caused me to lose an unborn baby. One month later, when I was placed in a prison camp, my state of subjection became complete. We were the vanquished: we had no rights.

You do not die when your face is slapped, or when you are struck, or when you are mistreated. It isn’t a killing matter: in warfare it isn’t even a serious one. But it is not pleasant; you do not like it.

Very often in prison camp we mistreated ourselves. We were our own worst enemies — the miseries of war made us so. Hunger, discomfort, and drudgery, illness and suffering, boredom and disappointment and despair, do not bring out the best in people.

Greatest enemy of all was the despair of hope deferred. From the day of internment to the day of liberation we fed on false rumors. Throughout three and a half years our release was always three to six months ahead — or tomorrow. Perhaps we could not have lived without these false hopes, but certainly we lived miserably with them.

The most deteriorating factor was the complete lack of privacy in camp. Middle-aged women are particularly dependent upon clothing and artifice, not only for their appearance, but for their morale. Self-respect was difficult to keep. Lack of privacy made for indifference in us, and lack of masculine stimulation made for slovenliness. We longed for our husbands, our homes, decent living conditions for our children — and passionately, we longed to get away from one another.

In camp, we had all the sins. Some of us were greedy. I have seen an individual eat five smuggled eggs at one time, while surrounded by very hungry companions with none. Some were dishonest, stealing from one another, and there was much hijacking of smuggled goods. Most of us were dishonest to the extent of stealing from the enemy. Some consistently shirked community work. The last year in camp, when each prisoner’s vitality was limited, to ask another woman to do your job was to encroach on her life span. A few were traitors, constantly threatening to report to the Japanese officials the smuggling and lawbreaking in camp. And some were just whiny, mopey, sloppy, and sorry for themselves.

The predominant sin was selfishness. Each one had to fight to survive. There was never enough of anything — food, material possessions, energy, leisure. If you wanted to survive, you had to hang on to what you had and grab for more.

We mothers were notoriously selfish. To fight for one’s child is selfish, for the child is oneself; but it is a more justifiable form of selfishness than fighting for oneself, because the child is also the future. In him is the hope of the race. We fought for our children’s needs, even though we menaced the comforts of others.

There were two virtues noticeable in camp: courage and good morale. Almost all the prisoners displayed physical courage; we came to accept discomfort and pain as normal conditions. The old, the ill, and the frail attempted and accomplished impossible physical tasks, survived impossible illnesses, and evaded unavoidable deaths.

In our women’s camp we showed greater life stamina than the men. Like Rasputin, our bodies wriggled on long after they should have been dead. Or perhaps you had to wring our necks, like chickens, to kill us.

Our other virtue was good cheer. The morale in camp was good. We knew that the only way to make life bearable was to laugh and not to cry. It was not the mean, greedy, dishonest, light-fingered, violent-tempered women that the camp resented. It was the tearful and hysterical women who were sorry for themselves. But their number was limited.

Most of the time, most of the women had bright faces, smiled and laughed. A stranger coming into our camp would not have guessed from the atmosphere that all of us were hungry, most of us were suffering from physical complaints for which we had neither remedy nor palliative, and all of us were sick at heart with hope deferred. Many bore the additional burden of “missing” husbands with fates unknown. But on the surface we were cheerful. The Japanese officers, when inspecting our camp, often turned this quality of cheer to their own credit. They said that one could see by our cheerful attitude that we were well treated.

Some of this cheer was pride: we were determined to show the Japanese that Western women did not complain. We had many opportunities to hear about the virtues of Japanese women in contrast to Western ones.

We had also pride among ourselves. One was ashamed to complain when all had cause to do so. The heroism of a few was noticeable. It is impossible to exaggerate the mental torture experienced by those women whose husbands had been taken from camp and held without communication in Japanese prison cells, or who had disappeared from their knowledge completely.

My husband was held thus for three weeks, and the first three days almost broke my endurance. Yet many women bore up bravely under this anxiety throughout months and years. And in the end, when peace came, they had to learn of the deaths of their husbands. When my husband was in the cells, I determined that if he got out alive I would try not to complain so much, even if the war lasted ten more years. I could not hold to my resolve entirely, but certainly that mental crisis did force me to a saner perspective on the less vital annoyances of prison camp life.

2

IN general, I saw in myself and all about me physical, mental, and moral deterioration taking place. The greatest distress I suffered was the feeling of the utter waste of those years in camp.

I saw myself becoming hard, bitter, mean — disgracing the picture I had painted for myself in happier days. My disposition and my nerves became unbearable. I fell into the habit of speaking to my little son with a hysterical violence which I hated but could not control. He was innocent of all blame for our misfortunes; and yet, because we lived in distressing conditions, because I did not have food to give him when he begged for it, because I myself was often so hungry that I could not sit with him when he ate — because of these things I would rage at him. I think that every one of the twenty-three mothers who went through the experience with me in Kuching will agree that it was as near to hell as anything our mortal minds could conceive.

Each one of us wept in despair for what we could not give to our children. Not for material things alone, — not for food, playthings, luxuries, comforts, — but for the gentle, loving mothers that we could not be to our children. We were all that stood between them and destruction. We were not just mothers: we were the whole force of circumstances in our children’s world. Our bodies were worn, our nerves were torn, our energies were flagging; because of this we could show our children only stern women struggling grimly to get them food.

I have heard men say that they believe they profited in some ways by prison camp experience. This is not my case. It is true that I learned some things. I learned that I can do anything in this world that I have to do, until the final thing which kills me. I learned not to worry about my food — I can take or leave it, although I prefer to take it. I learned that I can be very unsanitary and still escape lice, bedbugs, skin infections; that I can live with germs and not die of disease. I learned that almost unendurable physical pain can be endured for a limited time, but minor discomfort over a long period becomes unendurable. I learned not to fear death so much as life without decent living.

I learned that it is not enough to exist: one must have reason for existing. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Never was this so true as in prison camp. This is the one worth-while lesson that I learned. The word that proceeded out of the mouth of God for me was the warning not to be consumed by hate. Hate is a wasteful emotion: for my own sake, I didn’t wish to hate the Japanese or the people about me.

Every night when I lay down beside my son, I was filled with love for him. Every night we said the Lord’s Prayer together. I was not praying for an answer, or to praise the Lord, but to ease myself. I was looking for rest and peace, and a way to make life bearable when it was not bearable. With George beside me I could know that love holds together in time of danger, that love soothes and strengthens, that love builds up, where hate destroys. I could pray then to love and to God, the two inseparable.

I went to bed at dusk most nights, and lay awake several hours before sleeping. I got up several times during the night to smoke cigarettes, because of hunger. I went out to the latrines several times each night as a result of improper diet.

I had time at night to think. I thought of all the young men of all races, who were dying all over the world in battle, who had at some time lain like George beside their mothers. When those boys died, what did they die for? How often must they have asked themselves this question. I could not believe that their answer was — for hate. Hate is neither worth living nor dying for.

We in prison were at that time the mistreated ones. Yet it would be only a matter of time and the turn of the tide, before we should be the abusers and our captors the abused, because we had in ourselves the same instincts for brutality. War evoked and exalted these instincts. It was war that we must hate, and not each other. I grew then to hate the quality of brutality in man more than I could hate any race or individual, and to hate the circumstances of war that call forth this brutality.

It seemed to me then that all mankind is alike, with two ways before it. Feebly we yearn for the good way, yet fear to stand out against the evil one. And stronger in us than either good or evil is inertia. Thus we wait for circumstances to decide whether we shall be saints or devils.

We nearly destroyed ourselves in that camp, with hate of each other as well as of the enemy. Against it I had just one defense. My husband and I loved each other. During our captivity we had this one thing to live for: the hope of the perpetuation of this love in our child and in our future. In the harsh and sterile surrounding of prison camp, our love for each other existed in us as the one fertile and enduring thing. It gave us strength to live, when life was not livable.

It was the practice of the Japanese to make us, against our will, witnesses to their abuse of our fellow prisoners. These exhibitions were public, and the victim was detained in public view long after punishment. A dog may hide away when in pain, but not so a prisoner.

During these episodes, I have never seen a victim fail in fortitude or lose the dignity of courage. At such times the picture came to me of Christ, who suffered persecution bravely on the cross. It was not Christ who was shamed, but the persecutors. Watching these men and boys who were so brave, I saw that the only shame for them would be for them ever to change place with their persecutors.

I often had to observe the actions of one handsome young Nipponese soldier who was always in charge of the guard that herded us women outside the camp to haul firewood. He was tall for a Japanese, with unusually nice legs, of which he was very proud. He treated them tenderly and clothed them with well-fitting trousers — a Japanese rarity — and well-polished army boots.

On the road down which we carried firewood we usually passed British soldiers at work. They were almost naked, without shoes or trousers, halfstarved, and scarcely able to carry the loads under which they struggled. Our handsome guard could never pass by one of these soldiers without kicking him on his naked body with his own well-booted foot.

We always pretended not to see, walking with eyes ahead and expressionless faces. But under our breaths we muttered, “The swine, the louse, the filthy Jap.” I know that we despised this boy as he could never have despised us.

This Japanese lad had another victor’s gesture. When displeased, annoyed, fed up with life, he would call a British soldier out of his group and command him to stick out his tongue. He would then snap the man’s jaw shut on his tongue, with a swift uppercut.

Unwillingly I witnessed this boy’s progress throughout two years of war. I made up my mind then that I would sooner see my own son die of starvation in camp than have him live to be like that. I learned then that I hated the spirit of brutality in man more bitterly than I hated anything that the Japanese could do to me.

3

IN TIME the day arrived when we ceased to be the vanquished ones. September 11 came and the Allies returned to Borneo as victors, and we, the prisoners, were free. From a state of lethargy, we swept into one of hysteria. A phrase came to my mind on that day of liberation, and remained there for a long time after: “I have lived long enough, having seen this day.” That was the great moment of a lifetime; then was the time to die.

After our liberation our Japanese guards were collected. They were confined behind the barbed wire; they were turned into labor squads and put out to work; their officers were taken for questioning. Within a few days, the Japanese commandant of our camp (and the commandant of all prisoners of war in Borneo) had killed himself; the secondin-command and the Japanese medical officer responsible for the Kuching camps had both repeatedly attempted suicide; and many other officers had successfully or otherwise followed the Japanese code.

When Colonel Suga, our commandant, was placed in the cells, his weapons were removed. He cut his throat with a blunt table knife stolen from his meal service. Although aided by his orderly towards success, he was half an hour in bleeding to death. When the details of his death were made public to the liberated prisoners of Kuching, the various comments were: “Not half long enough for him to suffer!” “Too good for him!” “I wish that I could have had the old bastard to finish off!”

“They ought to have kept him alive to prolong his agony!” “Slow torture is what he needed!”

Meanwhile we former prisoners were taken to a rest camp at Labuan. Here the stories of what was happening to our former guards at Kuching pursued us. Poker Face, the sergeant major, met with a fatal accident. Fish Face was beaten to death. TB was placed in the cells, where he profited by his Japanese lessons to us as to how to treat the vanquished. Fish’s Wife, who had always been athletic, was given opportunity for showing his prowess by running an interminable race around the perimeter of the old camp. Other guards had equal opportunities to experience the punishments which fitted the crimes.

But the fate of one young Taiwan guard, who had once saved one of our babies from drowning, I was unable to ascertain. The night before our liberation he had come to say good-bye to us in the mothers’ barracks. Then I and others had given him letters saying that he had always treated his prisoners kindiy. He had said good-bye and shaken my hand, and the tears had rolled down his cheeks as he did so. I felt that I knew why he cried; it was not for himself alone: it was for all young men who like himself must either kill or be killed. I hope that our letters saved him from the quality of the victor’s mercy, but I have never learned.

In general, these stories of the fate of our guards were told to us, and received by us, with relish. A favorite internee theme in the old days had always been a description of the manner in which the internees were going to treat their captors when they should be free. I had often heard women say, “Just wait until our turn comes! Then we’ll make them suffer as they have made us. I would like to get hold of some Japanese women and children and make them live as we have to live.”

On our way home across the Pacific, traveling as liberated personnel, I frequently heard descriptions by Allied soldiers of their rough treatment of the enemy. They felt that we, as former prisoners, should enjoy this. When sometimes I asked them, “Why did you do that? Did you enjoy doing it?” the answer was, “They did it, so we did it too,”or else, “Oh, well, they had it coming.”

On the transport in which we left Manila I noticed a tall, exceptionally husky former POW, who had both his hands bandaged. His story was quickly told to me. He had incurred his injuries the day after he had been liberated from his prison camp in Japan, by beating the Japanese commandant and the second-in-command of the prison camp. He had beaten them with his fists until both Japanese were dead. He had broken his hands in the process.

Confused though our thoughts are as to the ideology of this war, most persons will agree that we did not fight it in order to retaliate in kind for the actions which we condemn. But war brutalizes all whom it touches. If it did not do so, we could not endure it.

Those who have not been in the war zone are shocked when instances of physical violence involve their friends. We to whom such things have occurred take them for granted.

My husband and my son and I survived throughout three and a half years of war in a country occupied by the enemy. The husbands of many of my closest friends were executed or died of illness. Every letter that we now receive from persons who had been lost to our contact reveals further death and execution. But we three came through alive. That is the utmost we had the right to hope for.

People ask me for details of that period. Sometimes I answer them mildly, “It wasn’t very pleasant.” I know they cannot from those words visualize the situation as it was. But I am tired of war, and it is easier and pleasanter to forget.

But other times I remember that there is an obligation on my part to tell the facts as I know them. I speak plainly then. They exclaim in horror and surprise, “What! They did that to you? To women and children! How awful!”

But what, I feel like asking, do you expect? That is war. That is the last war — and the next war, which even now you so philosophically contemplate as an unavoidable evil.

Today we live in a world, not a state: we are a body of human beings, not of nationals. The responsibility of the entire body is ours. Every discovery of science further eliminates space and time: we cannot ignore starving Europe, a demoralized and fighting Asia. Tomorrow we may be they.

This continent has never experienced the violence of modern warfare. Must we in America wait for the destruction of this land which makes decent living possible to us, in order to learn the value of what we lose?

I have fought one war for my son in prison camp. He survives now because of me. He belongs now to peace. War is not good enough. It is better to have less and to give more, and to live in peace, than to fight.