Ave Maria, once sung by a soldier in a Japanese prisoner camp, holds a special place in the hearts of one local family

By Gillian Slade on December 7, 2018.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com @MHNGillianSlade

For one local family, hearing Ave Maria not only means Christmas, it is a reminder of incredibly tough times in the past and one Christmas in particular during the Second World War.

Bill Huysing was living in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, during the war. As a young man of about 20 he, along with his family, was in a Japanese concentration camp in a village called Ambarawa on the island of Gaba. He survived from 1942 to 1946 on a handful of rice a day.

One Christmas Day they returned from digging ditches and lined up to be counted by the Japanese sergeant.

“It was his biggest fun. It usually took hours of standing and many of us would collapse from being over tired,” said Huysing in a letter that was later published in a newspaper.

This Christmas Day was different though. At about 6 p.m. they were told to sit down as hot tea was distributed along with cigarettes. A speech followed about the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito, doing this to show the goodness of the Japanese in providing protection against the brutal Allied forces.

The prisoner would also be allowed to stay out of the barracks one hour longer than usual.

It grew dark with the glow from cigarettes providing a sense of celebration, Huysing said in his letter. Everybody was absolutely quiet.

“Then suddenly a young Australian soldier prisoner stood up and started to sing” Ave Maria in English in a clear and strong voice.

“… we listened, our hearts beating and tears in the eyes. It was Christmas,” reads the letter that has been tucked in the bible of his wife Willy Huysing, who passed away in Medicine Hat last week. She too, along with her family, had been in Japanese concentration camps.

His favourite song his whole life was Ave Marie because he said that almost every person in the camp was moved to tears, said Phil Turnbull, local city councillor, and Huysing’s son-in-law.

“Christmas for him was not the happiest time because he always remembered the many Christmases he spent in camp — five years. Christmas held memories of the friends he saw die,” said Turnbull, who remembers Bill talking about burying “one person in that camp for every railway tie they put down.”

The Japanese occupation of Indonesia began in March 1942. The Netherlands was not able to defend its colony against the Japanese because it was already struggling under Nazi occupation.

Willy was 11 when she became a prisoner, including two sisters who were four and three years old. She often talked about what she had endured while in the prison camp but after being settled in Canada in the late 1960s, Christmas was about celebrating life, said Turnbull. She had triumphed over what she’d been forced to endure.

Turnbull says the family makes a point of playing a rendition of Ave Maria at this time of year and remembering Bill and Willy.

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