A review by thethirdcrouch
The Railway Man by Eric Lomax

5.0

I wanted to read his story because I'm very curious how he would forgive his torturer. I wanted to know how long he had suffered with the trauma, how much he endured in being a POW. Sure I've seen some wartime movies but I wanted the emotional authenticity of an autobiography. Anne Frank's couldn't be more real and genuine, Atonement is heartbreaking in Normandy, I couldn't help myself to finish Sophie's Choice because it's long devastating road to sorrow. Eric Lomax, with the help of his editors and historians, carefully told his experience with pain but you could feel his endurance, persistence, his barely-there courage, as if during those times he was preparing himself to one day tell his full account of the War and the Imperial Japanese forces' treatment of its POW in South East Asia. I haven't read a Filipino's account of their time during the Japanese occupation but sure some movies and tv shows proved the horrors of it.

I couldn't imagine how he could forgive Nagase and all of Japan but as it was told everytime, revenge only consumes you and you don't deserve that. Nobody, who had endured unimaginable suffering or harrasment or bullying, deserves to suffer still because of bearing the grudges and their desire for revenge. Justice well served would be triumph but forgiveness is what will remove all the burden. And it should be noted, to commemorate those who died and to not let history be repeated; forgive but never forget.