Jacob Franken, a long-time Montrealer who survived both a World War II Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and the dropping of an atomic bomb, died earlier this week in Ottawa at 94-years-old.
Franken was born in Indonesia and joined the Dutch navy in 1941. Six months later, he was among the more than 100,000 Allied troops who were forced to surrender to the Japanese.
He was put to work in a hard labour camp in horrific conditions.
“He got sick with dysentery,” said his son, Ezra Franken. “A Japanese worker hid him, gave him rice and essentially saved his life.”
He was eventually sent to Nagasaki to work on Japanese war ships.
On Aug. 9, 1945, the city was struck by one of two atomic bombs dropped by American forces on Japan. More than 70,000 people were killed in Nagasaki.
At the time the bomb dropped, Franken in a coal mine, having volunteered for a night shift so he would be allowed to bathe. He would later recall hearing the bomb detonating. At the time of his death, he was the last Canadian to have survived Nagasaki.
“My dad really believed things happen for a reason and someone was watching over him,” said his daughter, Roslyn. “He would say, ‘I don’t know who you are, but thank you just the same.’”
Franken’s story was so remarkable, Roslyn would later compile it into a book about him and his wife, Sonja, entitled Meant to Be: A True Story of Might, Miracles and Triumph of the Human Spirit.
“She was in the Holocaust, survived the concentration camps of Nazi Europe,” said Roslyn. “She was in Auschwitz, the gas chamber three times and survived. Miracle after miracle.”
Roslyn hopes to bring her parents’ tale to high school students, to show them the meaning of resilience in the face of adversity.
“When you recognize what someone went through, you think, ‘You know what? Look what they went through. My problems? They’re not so bad,” she said.
