Vae Victis, a Journal of Internment

Feel the experiences befalling civilians in Japanese internment camps during World War II. Several hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked the Philippine Islands and immediately rounded up Western residents, mostly American, for internment. Fred Fisher's memoir vividly describes the personal travails of himself, his wife, and fellow internees in two of those camps. A well-read and well-traveled economist, linguist, and historian, Mr. Fisher discusses wars in general, his own philosophy on postwar measures, some extreme, to be taken by the United States, as well as revealing publicized Japanese aims to nullify Western presence in the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." You will sense the angst as you read about the ill treatment, malnutrition, starvation, and tight quarters which characterized the three-year internment and uncomfortably led from initial camaraderie, including presentations in the "Harvard Club," to an aura of disquiet among the internees. A grueling period of imposed marital separation, long delays in censored communications with family at home, and loss of valued personal possessions didn't help. Little news, but lots of rumors, about the European front abounded. Fortunately you will also feel the final sense of relief in the description of the dramatic rescue and liberation of the camps in February 1945.