Traces of War.
Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways
The 24 Dutch and Indonesian men in the book and exhibition “Traces of War” share the brutal World War II experience of working on the Burma or Sumatra (also called: Pakanbaroe or Pekan baru) Railroads, for which the Japanese used forced labor. Sixteen of them are former POWs, the other eight are former Indonesian romushas (civilian forced laborers). For the portraits, Banning took them back to the period of their slave labour: he photographed them the way they worked on the
railroads; bare from the waist up.
In addition to taking their portraits, Banning interviewed the men about their experiences as forced laborers and how these experiences influenced the rest of their lives. Banning‘s grandfather survived the Burma Railroad, and his father, the Sumatra Railroad.
Deze serie is opgenomen in de collectie van het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam