Overcoming years of conflicting emotions, a 71-year-old Dutchman this year made his first visit to Japan, seeking to retrace the footsteps of his father, who spent his youth in Yokohama and was later interned by the Japanese as a prisoner of war during World War II.

Born in the Dutch East Indies, Edu Van Naerssen's father, Jan, came to Japan alone to study developed industries. Then 17, he appears in a photograph of the class of 1935 at the now-defunct St. Joseph International School in Yokohama, which opened in 1901.

Jan returned to the Dutch East Indies to work as an electrical engineer when the Pacific War broke out in 1941, 78 years ago. He enlisted in the Dutch army and fought the Imperial Japanese Army but became a POW when the Dutch army was defeated in March 1942.