A personal account of life in the Dutch East Indies (Java, Indonesia) during the second world war under Japanese occupation and the subsequent Indonesian uprising. Louise and her daughter were living in Switzerland and were summoned to Java by her husband to escape the war in Europe, only to end up under Japanese occupation. As they held Swiss nationality they escaped the Japanese prison of war camps, but nonetheless survival in these extreme times required great resilience and good luck. This document sat gathering dust for years on various family bookshelves until her granddaughter, Ysabelle Taylor, decided to publish it in order to reach a greater audience, which she believes would have been the wishes of her grandmother.