Watching'"The Railway Man' on installments.

[Paul S.]

It is an excellent movie, and it only scratches the surface of what was endured physically and mentally by those who were captured in Malaya, at Singapore or on Java.

Ron, you're not wrong. The scars were deep and permanent for those who came home. For far too many the mental damage of years in a living hell never left them.

And yes, there was betrayal. Betrayal to Australia as a nation, to the men, and to the world after the war. The occupation and war crimes trials for Japan were a sham compared to what the Germans faced.

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[Sentryduty]

The occupation and war crimes trials for Japan were a sham compared to what the Germans faced.

Reading the book "The Arms of Krupp" details from the Krupp family side how they ran their own trials and made a mockery of the Allied process.


Turning off the heat in the courthouse to make the environment uncomfortable.

Organizing repeated defense lawyer walkouts to leave the Krupps undefended and the trials unable to proceed.

Offering up the senior invalid Krupp as the mastermind behind the treatment of Jewish factory slaves on his deathbed to take the fall and die of natural causes before execution.

Paying out the entire reparations fund to the first few hundred Jewish survivors who applied, then played off any later applicants on the first group to absolve themselves of responsibility.

And so on.

They pulled similar stuff during the Armistice after WW1 with the French as well, it's a fascinating book, but does confirm the existence of evil in the world.