YOKOHAMA – 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.
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