Marie Vischer Elliott: Surviving a WWII Concentration Camp to Discover Hope

Morgan Jones Pearson
Marie Elliott, known by her friends as Mary, survived three years as a prisoner of war when she was just a little girl. She remarkably survived in a camp where deaths were happening every day. Her father survived on the Java Sea for five days after his Dutch minesweeper was torpedoed by a Japanese destroyer. Her family was miraculously reunited at the end of the war, but her little brother Georgie died shortly thereafter from the effects of the camp, and the memories of that time have never left. Marie's experiences from the war told in an upcoming book, Under the Java Moon by Heather B. Moore, which will be released this fall. Marie Elliott is now 85 years old. Following World War II, she and her family moved to Holland and then to South Africa, where she raised her family and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Seven years after she joined the Church, her husband was baptized. And in 1980, the couple saved enough money to be sealed in the London temple with their three sons and one daughter. In Marie's own words, "I remember one day before my mother passed away, she said, 'Mary, this church has changed your life.' And it was true. I was a changed girl after the war. After the horrific ordeal of living as a prisoner of war, I was quiet and introverted, but the restored gospel had brought me out of myself. And I've learned again what it is to be me, happy and eager to serve and love others." This is All In, an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson and I am so thrilled to invite you to listen in on the conversation that I recently had with Marie Elliott. So I guess one of the biggest questions that I had, as I read the book was, this is a story that happened a very long time ago, most of us don't remember our childhood memories, I'm 33 years old, don't remember much from my childhood. So where do your childhood memories begin? And what was your childhood like?

Marie Elliott
So my memories actually begin before the war when we were living in Indonesia, where I was born. And we had this beautiful home and we had like, six or seven servants and I had a nanny, although my mother was a hands-on mother. And we had just had a wonderful life. We used to go on vacations to other beautiful parts of the country, mostly on Java Island. I don't think we went to any other islands because Java itself is so beautiful wherever you go. And so I have these memories of going on vacation and riding on a pony and on a horse and cold weather in the mountains. Whereas where we lived, it was a hot climate is actually only rainy season and a non rainy season. They are no other seasons at all. It either rains or doesn't but it stays warm or hot on Java. So you don't wear, as a child you don't wear much clothing at all.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Okay, so one thing that I love, there's a line in the book where it talks about how your brother—it says he was so little that he couldn't, he couldn't understand everything that was going on around him, but he sensed it through other people. And so I wondered for you these memories that you've shared in the book, how much of it is what you sensed just from being around your parents? And how much did you actually understand the enormity of what was going on around you?

Marie Elliott
Yes, well that is a very hard question. Do the adults even at the time, did they actually know what was going on? So as a child, do you know what's going on? Yes, as you said, you do sense that you know it's bad, bombs are falling, we are at war. Well, things are happening. First we heard in Europe and then it came closer. So we knew it was bad. But do you actually know what is happening? And do the adults even know what was happening. So as a childhood must have been even more confusing,

Morgan Jones Pearson
Right...to actually take it all in. So as you've shared these memories, from your experiences, how much of it is just your memory, how much is stuff that your parents told you once you got older or other records that were kept by your parents?

Marie Elliott
Well, I can tell you right now, my mother told me nothing, because she wanted us all to forget about the war, forget and forgive. We never spoke about it. So all those things in the book are my memories. And of course, I don't remember all of it. But there are many things that were stuck in my mind, in the deep recesses of my mind, and as I was telling the story and writing the story down, other things came in. And then when Heather was writing, and she would send it back to me, I would say, you are spot on. That's exactly what happened. And I did ask her at one stage. Have you prayed a lot about this? And she said, Yes, I do. So that was so interesting to me so often that she was able to write exactly how it happened without being there. So the book is my memories. And of course, my father's part of it is all his story, what he wrote down and what he told us after the war.

Morgan Jones Pearson
It's a good reminder of why to write things down, right?

Marie Elliott
Yes, a good reminder.

Morgan Jones Pearson
So you mentioned the Java Islands. I will be completely honest with you and say that I was not familiar with the Java Islands at all. So for those listening, that are not familiar with that part of the world, with the role that it played in this story of World War Two and how World War Two affected that geographic area? Can you kind of explain a little bit about where you were growing up and how it was affected by what was going on in the war?

Marie Elliott
So in the first place they are, it's called Indonesia now. It used to be the Dutch East Indies. And they're a group of islands. And Java is only one island so it's not the Java islands, it's the Indonesian Islands. And so it's Java. It's Borneo, Sumatra, there is New Guinea. And then there's a ton of Bali. Everybody knows Bali with the Balinese dancers, and if anybody goes to Indonesia, they usually go to Bali, because that's the island people know about and then there's a lot of little islands like Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, Timor, Lombok. So I think all in all, there are about 6500 or so inhabited islands in Indonesia, and I think there are about 118,000 islands altogether. That's what Indonesia is made out of. And Indonesia lies south of the Philippines and south of Indonesia is Australia. So Indonesia lies between Australia South and the Philippines north and then above Philippines, you have Japan. So the whole Pacific is actually made up of Islands, Australia being the biggest island. And then you have New Zealand, and then you have Micronesia, and you have Samoa, Fiji, Japan, which is also made up of islands, all these islands are in the Pacific Ocean.

Okay, and why did anybody care about this little island in the middle of World War II?

Well, the whole of Indonesia, Borneo, and first of all, they were the biggest rice exporters in the world. So food and petroleum. Okay. And of course, it started off with the bombing of Hawaii. And then soon after they occupied Indonesia.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Okay. You mentioned asking Heather, if she prayed as she was writing the book, you're obviously a person of faith. But you talk in the book about how your dad was not really a man of faith, but your mom definitely was. Tell me a little bit about your faith growing up and as a little girl going into this experience.

Marie Elliott
Okay so I don't believe that I even thought about God, or religion or anything. I had my mother, she was my everything. My mother was my everything. And she was an amazing woman. And so what else do you need when you have such a great mother in your life? And my mother, I knew my mother did pray, and you know, she had faith and my grandma I saw her as well. However, the first time I started praying, I remember, I was eight on the boat for my parents to go back to Holland. It was for me, it was a first. I had never been to Holland, I was born in Indonesia. And the reason why I started praying...was because again, I was so scared. And I was very ill, and I was lying in this bed all by myself. And we were told that there were mines in the ocean, ocean mines, that could blow the ship up any minute. So I had these visions of being blown up arms going one way, head going the other way. And, you know, being blown to pieces, we had two minesweepers with us. But of course, they can't sweep all the mines. So it was still possible to go over a mine. And it just absolutely petrified me. And that's when I remember starting praying. And then when we got to Holland, and after I got better, I affiliated myself with a Sunday school, I don't know what denomination it was. And I started reading the Bible. And I started wanting to know about religion, more about religion.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Okay, so backing up a little bit, then tell us a little bit about what happened for your family in the very beginning, as the war started to affect the area in which you lived. And what you remember about that, and kind of bring us up to the point of being put in the concentration camp.

Marie Elliott
Okay, so we were living in this beautiful home, and my dad was going to work. And we actually did have a car. It was a little Wolseley. I don't know if they still around. But he mainly used his bicycle. And he would come home every night. And then of course, we heard about on the radio about the war. In Europe, the war had started. And my grandma had just been to see her son Jack in America, and had come over to Indonesia. And we all thought, Oh, that was a good thing that she didn't go back to Holland. She's now safe and sound in Indonesia, and she's with us, nothing can happen. And so little did we know that worse things were going to happen and then little by little we heard about Pearl Harbor being bombed. You know, the grown ups were listening to the radio. And as kids and friends we talked about it. And then little by little the Japanese started invading. And I actually saw I was playing in my yard, actually saw and I don't know if it was the whole Japanese army or part of the Japanese army, but I saw the soldiers arrive, they went right past my house. It was the main road...It's in the book. And I saw the soldiers, the Japanese soldiers, I was so petrified, I hid myself in the hedge. I was too scared to go back, to run back to the house, which was further back, that I just hid myself in the hedge. And I still remember it was a terrible sight of these Japanese soldiers going by and it was cobblestone so it made a lot of noise and the bayonets with the points and the little hats with the flaps at the back so I still remember that. It's in my head. It's my mind.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Right. So your family, your dad goes to Australia and that was kind of when things started to affect you personally, up to that point you had heard and knew that the war was happening, but didn't think that it would affect you and your family. Can you tell those listening just to kind of give a broader picture, can you tell us how it started to impact you, and what that felt like, as a little girl to be the one observing all of this and seeing what was happening. So if you could share a little bit about what you saw happening, and then how you felt?

Marie Elliott
So then one day, my dad told my mother, he came home and said that they were going to take a boat, and they were going to escape to Australia and help the war, because he said he was helpless. Being in Indonesia, although his family was there, my dad was very hard working. And so he wanted to go and help the war, and go to Australia. My mother was, you know, she supported him, of course, like she did all her life. And so she said goodbye to him. And he left that night. And they went in this boat, which they had already started to equip. And then we stayed behind. And I had an aunt there who actually left her premises and came and stayed with with us in the house. And then slowly and slowly, we saw people going by, having to move house, and then we had to move house as well. And we moved a few times, to different houses. And then slowly as I said, things got worse, my aunt moved in, the beloved servants didn't come back. You know, I loved my nanny and the cook and the gardener. And they did not come back. Life started changing, life became more difficult, not as enjoyable. We still went out and played and climbed trees and did the things we wanted to do. Kick the ball. And my brother, Georgie had a doctor said he wanted to be a doctor so we had to be patients. So we still played and we still had fun and then slowly, then we moved. And then they built a bomb shelter. And we had to—every now and then the sirens would go off. And we had to get into this bomb shelter, which was awful. Because it had water in it. And we had to wade through this water. And then eventually, first it was practicing and then it was real. We actually saw the bombs fall and then you know, life just became worse and harder and harder. No water, we had to go to far away, like the African countries, a bucket and fill it with water because we only had one faucet for the whole camp. And we needed that for drinking and washing ourselves. So life became as we went on, life became harder and harder.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Yeah. Well, the interesting thing to me about that is it's not like there was one moment where it was the realization of all of this is happening. Because it was so gradual.

Marie Elliott
It came slowly. It came very slowly. And then you realize when you're in the camp, you know, and then life in the camp became like it was always going to be like that. As a child, you didn't know that there was going to be an end to this. This is how you were going to live. Which was pretty sad. But in your mind, this is life. This is now our life and of course three years is a long time for a child. The camp as such was just a small part of (which it was Batavia. It's now Jakarta) of Jakarta where all these people were interned. In the beginning, the gate was still opened. My mother and I was still able to go on a bicycle and buy stuff from the market, the open air market from the Javanese people, but eventually the gates were closed, and we just weren't able to get any more food. And the food in the camp was terrible. And it was very little, not sufficient to keep people alive. So my mom didn't bring some peanut plants or peanuts, and she planted them. So in the beginning, we did have peanut butter, which is actually very good, very good protein, very healthy, and makes you pretty full. I know now, if I take a teaspoon of peanut butter, I am full. So, so that was very good in the beginning, but then it just got worse and worse and worse. And then sometimes for punishment, we would go three days without food, if somebody had done something that wasn't appropriate and they didn't like, we would go without food for three days. So quite honestly, I have looked and I said that in my book, I have looked back to that life and to me, it's a miracle that anybody actually came out of there alive. And I don't know how many people died, masses of people that including my grandmother and of course, Georgie, later on after the war, I am kind of amazed at the fact that there were people who came out of there alive. And you know, and then of course, the jubilation that you could hardly believe that there is now is going to be an end. You know, it was kind of incredible.

Morgan Jones Pearson
So tell me about that. Tell me about when you learned that there was going to be an end, what were you feeling? What What was the overall experience?

Marie Elliott
Joy and jubilant and actually incredulous. At first you are so incredulous. It's like, this is, yeah, tell me the story again. It's unbelievable. You know, we are going to be free. We're gonna get rid of this concentration camp. At the beginning, it's stunning. You can't believe it. It's incredulous. But it slowly comes upon you that yes, yes, we are free. And my mother had a dream that we were free. And then the following day after her dream, a train came by with Javanese people. And they had the Dutch flag and they shouted and said, "We're free, you're free. The Japanese have surrendered." And of course it was jubilation, but we had to be careful again after that. And that, of course, is another story.

Morgan Jones Pearson
And maybe we'll leave that for people to read in the book. But I wanted to touch on one thing. So first, tell me about what you felt—you mentioned that your two little brothers, obviously your youngest brother who your mom had after your dad left? He didn't know your dad at all. And you said that Georgie didn't recognize your dad. Did you recognize your dad? And what did you feel?

Marie Elliott
My mother pointed out, there's your dad and I looked up and I looked at all these men coming along, I did recognize him. Okay, then I did notice it was him.

Morgan Jones Pearson
And how did you feel in that moment?

Marie Elliott
Happy of course, we were going to have him to help us. You know, my dad would fix everything. He's a fixer upper, you know. And they did. All these men. We got water. And the sewage started to work and, you know, everything that we take for granted today came back into our lives, which was so amazing. And then we had a most amazing experience. We were invited to an American troop ship, which was we were not extremely far away from the harbor a few hours, I would say. And we were invited all the children were invited to go to this American troopship for a party! Candy! And all sorts of things. You know, I know my brothers, I didn't, I'm not too much of a candy person, but my brother's stuffed all their pockets full of candy. And we ran around the ship, like crazy people, crazy. It was just, you know, unbelievable. We ran around. And we looked at all these things that we hadn't seen for years. And of course, a lot of it was American, which we hadn't seen period, in Indonesia. So it was it was all very strange and interesting, and happy, joyful.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Another thing that stood out to me was from the very beginning of the book, every time your little brother Georgie comes up, it makes it very clear that Georgie was special in your eyes, and how much you loved him. And so you suffer this devastating loss after making it out of the concentration camp. And he made it out. But then as a result of the effects of what he had experienced, he passed away. And so as a big sister, you have to go through that. But then fast forward, and years later, you find the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you learn about how families can be together forever. What did that mean to you having lost your little brother?

Marie Elliott
That meant a lot to me. However, I have always known that there is life after death, because my mother had an out of body experience before she got married. And so she told me about it. And my mother was my everything. And I believed everything she told me. And I knew, and I always felt I had come from somewhere. And so it made sense to me that there was life after death. And so the thought was that God wanted Georgie more than what he was needed on this earth, he was too good, too good to be. And everybody loved Georgie. I mean, when you have a child like that, my mother always said that he was given to her to be able to get through the concentration camp. He was her help and her stay and her desire to live and of course her other children as well. But he helped her to get through this concentration camp. And then when that was over, it was just natural that God would take him. Then he was taken. And we knew my mother knew and so when he died, I was very ill myself. So at the time, and when you go through something like a concentration camp for years, you somehow when you come out of it, you are kind of a little bit past feeling. A little hardened. You don't maybe feel like other people feel. And certainly I think I was hardened. And I know it took some years for me to soften up and to maybe become normal.

Morgan Jones Pearson
So with all the things that you experienced, I think for most of us marry, myself included, this is something we learn about in school. And it's something that we read books about. And we think the stories are interesting. When we are talking to you, we're not talking about something that's just a story in a book. It's something that you actually lived and I think the thing that struck me as I read about your experiences, and then also in knowing that now you've lived how many years as a widow

Marie Elliott
Probably almost 29

Morgan Jones Pearson
A long time. So you've had you've had a hard in my opinion, I look at you and I think it is remarkable that you haven't allowed any of those things to make you bitter and instead still share your beautiful smile and the warmth that you have and so how do you feel like you've not allowed those things to make you bitter but instead have relied on your faith and and your belief in God?

Marie Elliott
Well, first of all, my parents were a very good example of, even though my dad was not a Christian, and he didn't believe, he lived a good life and he helped other people. And so, first of all, my parents said that we are going to forget this, and we are going to forgive. And that was it. It was never mentioned again. And so slowly on, I became a normal person and an everyday person, like going into school and making friends and going to piano lessons and doing the things, a lot of things that children did. Well, and I think that I had an interest in religion. And I felt that that there was a God, but I didn't know Him. And I read the Bible. And I then when we emigrated to South Africa, we affiliated ourselves, Mom and I was the Methodist Church. And I always felt that the Savior was actually—that that story of Him living on Earth was a true story that had actually happened. Also, because first of all, it was in the Bible, and I believe that, but then there was a book by Josephus. He's a historian. And he mentions that Jesus walked the earth, he mentions Jesus in his book, and it's a history book. It's not a religious book. So I felt that there had been such a person living on the earth. And then, of course, later on, the true Church, which I prayed for for two years.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Okay, I want to hear this story. So tell you about how you found the Church.

Marie Elliott
So once I knew and I had read the Bible through, and I found that a few things, you had to be baptized by immersion, why don't we have a prophet today? There always was a prophet on the earth, like Moses, etc. And then I always wanted to know where I came from, and why I was here and where I was going. And none of the ministers and the churches that I investigated, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, or various religions were able to answer those questions. And so I started praying and I prayed for two years, and asking Heavenly Father, if there was a true church upon the earth, that He would show it to me. And little things happen beforehand, which, you know, we won't go into. But eventually, my husband worked with a gentleman who had just been married, a young couple, and we had just had our third baby, our third son. And he invited this couple to our house, and they were members of the Church, we didn't know. And every time they came to our church to our home to visit, they wanted to tell us about the Church. And then I did mention I was having the Jehovah Witnesses. And then eventually, Jeff said, if you are investigating, or before you join the Jehovah Witnesses, please would you mind listening to our missionaries, and see what they have to say? And I said, Sure. And when they left, I said to my husband, I said, Well, I said, we'll listen to them, but nine out of 10 they probably don't [have the answers]. Because by then, I had said, because the Jehovah Witnesses don't believe in life after death, and I knew for a fact that there was life after death. And I actually said to my husband, if after the first discussion of the missionaries, we don't like it, we can just say, Okay, forget about the whole thing. We're not interested but I was hooked. And here I am. They were able to answer all my questions. And we have a prophet on the earth. And we do have to be baptized by authority, and baptized by immersion. And that was just a great comfort. And of course, families are forever. And I know that. And even though when my mother, my mother died, and she was everything to me, I was not unhappy. In fact, I was happy, because I was going to do her work for her. And she was going to join the Church, and I knew she would be happy. So that was amazing to me.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Marie, listening to your story is almost like listening to someone who has lived multiple lives, because you went from having a fairly affluent childhood, to then this experience in a concentration camp. And then now, you live here in America, and it's clear in talking to you and in our correspondence leading up to this interview, it's clear that being free and being here in the United States of America is not something that you take for granted at all, tell me about why that freedom means so much to you.

Marie Elliott
It means to me that I can do what I want to do. And even in South Africa, I felt restricted towards the end of my life there before I emigrated, because there was a lot of hooliganism, and a lot of stealing and thieving going on. So you had to be very careful where you went. And so then coming to America, it was like, wow, I can just go and get in my car and go anywhere, or I can go and hike in a forest which to me is so amazing. It's amazing. You know, it's like a burden coming off your shoulders, a burden gone. It's gone, you're free. You live in a country where you can actually do what you please, what you like to do, what you enjoy doing. And nobody is going to say anything. I could stand on my head outside this door, and nobody's gonna say anything to me. You know it's actually amazing and incredible to me. When I came here, I had this feeling. And I tell my friends in South Africa, you don't know how you feel until you come to a country that is free. You don't know, I didn't know I felt the way I did in South Africa. You know, having been careful, because that's your life and the same in the concentration camp. That was my life, that's how we lived. And you don't you kind of don't question it, you just do it.

Morgan Jones Pearson
I think that's the same reason that someone like me takes those freedoms for granted because I don't know anything any different. And so I love talking to you, Marie, because it's a good reminder to me of how lucky and how blessed we are. So tell me, you didn't talk about this experience for a long time. You would mention it to your husband or to your kids, but not in great detail. And I'll be honest with you, sitting here and asking you questions and asking you to relive these things, I feel bad asking you to do that. And so when there are so few people that went through what you went through still able to share their stories. Why do you feel compelled now to share your story and to share what you experienced and what you learned from it?

Marie Elliott
Okay, first of all, I want to say to me, it's incredible that you or other people don't know and haven't experienced what I experienced. To me, that other people are so interested in what I experienced, to me it was a normal part of my life. I went through it, it was hard but it is kind of incredulous that other people haven't been through similar things or haven't done this or known it. So now knowing, knowing that people don't, and my grandchildren, I mean, the way people throw away food and stuff like that, to me, it is just awful. I feel that people today and people to come need to know how bad war is, how bad. There are no winners in a war, there are only losers. Everybody loses in a war. People need to know that. Now they started a war in the Ukraine, my heart bleeds for those people. It bleeds for those people. People need to know how bad and how awful a war is. They need to know. They mustn't take for granted everything they have because tomorrow, the people in Ukraine, one day they had everything, the next day it was gone. They were in a war, they were fighting, bombs are falling. So every day, we have to live our lives to the best we possibly can. And remember, things will change tomorrow. We may have a disease, you know. So it may not even be war. It may be cancer, it may be something that just hits you. Today, you're fine. Tomorrow, it's gone. So every day, we need to be grateful for what we've got, the food we have, thank heaven for the food we have on the table, for everything that we have every single day, do not take it for granted. And people need to know.

Listening to you say that reminds me that if there are no winners in war, that causes us to want to build peace more. And so hopefully, that's what your story will remind people of is the value of peace and building peace. And I just am so grateful to you for being willing to share it because like I said, I know that asking you to relive those things is not a pleasant thing. But you have been willing to do that for us today and in this book. And so thank you so so much.

Can I just say something? There are so many families, if we cannot have peace in our family, how is the world going to have peace? So I would like people to know make peace if there's a brother or a sister or whoever you have in the family that you haven't spoken to. Speak to them, make peace, love them, love them. Love everybody you come in contact with. And you be the one that loves everybody and then you spread the love. And that's how peace will go. You know, because if you cannot have peace within your family, the world is never going to have peace. There's always going to be fighting.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Well said. Marie, my last question for you is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Marie Elliott
It means to me, I am in it heart, soul and body. I have embraced the gospel with all my heart and soul. I love it with all my heart and soul. I just know it's true. And I pray and ask Heavenly Father, "Don't take it away from me. Don't let me fall away. I need it, I want it and I love it." And I go the extra mile every calling I receive. I go the extra mile. I do more. My Sunday school lesson takes me almost two weeks to prepare. I want to be the best I can.

Morgan Jones Pearson
Thank you so much Marie for sharing. It means a lot to me. A big thanks to Marie Elliott for joining us on today's episode. You can find "Under the Java Moon," on bookshelves in September of this year. Thanks to KSL for their help with this episode as well as Derek Campbell of Mix At Six Studios for his help as always. Thank you so much for listening