by Tricia Tomiyoshi
The three and a half years that Helen Colijn spent in a Japanese prison camp during World War II were not easy. The food was full of maggots, bayonet-toting guards frequently harassed the prisoners, and disease ran so rampant that about half her fellow inmates died before the war ended. But one thing helped Colijn get through it: music. The Menlo Park woman watched as many of the prisoners composed and sang music to get them through the days on the humid island of Sumatra, where her camp was located. Decades later, Colijn would write about her experience in the camp and how music was her savior. Her writing became a book, "Song of Survival: Women Interned."
Now, her book has become the basis for a major motion picture called "Paradise Road," which opens tonight, April 18, at the Park Theatre in Menlo Park.
"Paradise Road" (see review on page 18) stars Glenn Close, Pauline Collins and this year's Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand from the movie "Fargo." It tells the story of the Dutch, British and Australian women held captive in a Sumatran prison camp during the war, following Japan's policy of interning all Westerners until the war's end.
Bruce Beresford, the Australian writer and director of "Paradise Road," drew from the experiences of many different camps on Sumatra to create the camp portrayed in the film. Through interviewing survivors and by reading diaries, manuscripts and books about other camps on Sumatra for more than two years, Beresford created one camp encompassing these varied stories.
Colijn, who traveled to Los Angeles two weeks ago for the film's screening, says the movie accurately reflects what life was like in the camps.
"This filmmaker has created a camp, a composite camp. It's not exactly the way that our camp was because he wanted to show some things that happened in other camps. There are more unhappy scenes, more violent scenes in the film than what happened to me in my camp, but it is not a fantasy of the director. These (events) did happen," said Colijn.
Colijn and her two sisters were imprisoned in the same camp in March 1942, shortly after the family moved to the Dutch East Indies when her father was offered a job with Shell Oil. Her father and mother were also imprisoned, but in different camps. Her father died in one before the war ended.
The music that was unique to Colijn's camp remains the focal point of the film.
"The film and the book both focus on the music," said Colijn. "Because that was the happy thing that came out of the camp."
"Music heals--that's one of my buzz words. Not everyone needs to be healed, but lots of people have difficult lives, and if they could hear how these women coped (through their music in the internment camp), it might inspire them."
Indeed, during Colijn's imprisonment, she became an expert on the healing power of music. While she did not sing in the choir, Colijn was a witness to the camp's vocal orchestra music, which transformed the prisoners around her.
Vocal orchestra music substitutes voices in parts that were originally composed for piano or orchestra. In the camp, the women often sang English or Dutch songs with words, but the vocal orchestra pieces brought an uncommon beauty to their surroundings. The music was handwritten with tiny printing to conserve paper and pencils, which were scarce camp resources.
Thirty women, including Helen's two sisters, Antoinette and Alette, formed the vocal orchestra in 1943, performing the works of Dvorak, Bach, Beethoven and Chopin, using only their voices. Singing with a "leh, leh, leh," the women mastered an ethereal sound.
It fulfilled each woman's dream: It freed their spirit. In their conditions ridden with disease, isolation and hunger, from behind the barbed wire, the sounds of their voices soared far beyond the confines of the internment camp. The music returned their sense of humanity and dignity in their inhumane environment and served as an endless source of hope, Colijn explained.
The SONY Classical label is distributing the "Paradise Road" soundtrack, which features 11 of the vocal orchestra songs, performed by the Malle Babbe Women's Choir. The soundtrack follows the original arrangements, written by Margaret Dryburgh. Although many pieces on the soundtrack are not featured in the film, they were performed in the camp. In addition, music that has been composed specifically for the movie is included on the soundtrack.
Colijn was freed from the camp in August 1945. She came to the United States and settled in Menlo Park. Now 75, she has freelanced as a translator, tutored students, escorted European tours, edited for Sunset Magazine and raised a daughter.
Still, memories of the internment camp have followed her through it all, and over the past 15 years she has become active in retelling her story.
"I never intended to write a book about my prison camp experience. It sort of just happened. I didn't think that, years later, I would be going to the Hollywood premiere of the film," said Colijn.
The music re-emerged in 1981 when Helen's sister Antoinette, who was keeping the original musical manuscripts, gave them to Stanford University for preservation. Since the manuscripts were written in pencil nearly 40 years earlier, they were beginning to deteriorate.
Archivists at Stanford were interested in hearing the music and this led to a performance of the original arrangements by the Peninsula Women's Chorus. Colijn gave a brief introduction before the concert, explaining the origins of the music, and was greeted with a large audience response.
"If you talk to many war survivors, you may find that all of the rehashing of the war years is difficult (for them)" Colijn explained. "It was hard enough when they were getting out of the camps and making new lives for themselves. They don't want to return to the past. It's too painful. Once I started on this music program, it wasn't so difficult for me because I was doing something that was frightfully positive, connecting with all kinds of people who loved the music."
Besides opening nationwide this week, "Paradise Road" also will be shown in other countries. It is scheduled to be released in parts of Europe, including Colijn's homeland of the Netherlands, next month.
"Making the movie has given me the realization that more and more people are going to hear our music and that's an exciting thing. Our music. See, we still talk about 'our' music. We're very possessive of it," Colijn said.
But she is quite happy to share it.
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