Rosie's War: Escape from Singapore 1942 - Rosalind Sharbanee Meyer

SINGAPORE, 1942, is an exotic tropical city and the home of six-year-old Rosie Sharbanee. Born into a lively Iraqi-Jewish family who rose from humble beginnings to create a thriving business, Rosie's days are filled with the love of her amusing and exasperating relatives and servants. Like most residents of the great island city, they are unaware that the Japanese invasion is about to shatter everything

Forced to flee or submit to the Japanese occupation, Rosie's family splits apart. Rosie's War reveals their hazardous escape to Bombay, from the perspective of watchful, sensitive Rosie.

Isolated and uncertain of his wife and children's fate, Rosie's father Eliah is incarcerated in Changi, where inmates are exposed to malnutrition and fatal diseases. His mother and sisters join him in the harrowing Sime Road Civil Internment Camp and focus on keeping themselves alive until the war's end.

With honesty and affection Rosalind Sharbanee Meyer recalls her fascinating childhood in a family of multilingual British subjects, and illuminates their wartime struggles.

Most of all, Rosie's War is the story of the loving bond between daughter and father, who after painful separation and estrangement must rebuild their relationship in post-war Singapore and Australia.

Sydney Jewish Museum 2013, paperback

"A poignant and emotionally charged story of one woman's journey back into her past.. a trip down memory lane filled with odd, enchanting characters..."

Darren Levin, The Australian Jewish News