During the Second World War thousands of Dutch, British, Australian and American prisoners of war were forced by the Japanese to work on the railways in Burma and Sumatra, alongside more than a quarter of a million Asians, the so-called romushas. They worked in desperate conditions, and between 50 and 80 per cent of the romushas did not survive the regime, not least as a result of being torpedoed in transit: the sinking of the Junyo Maru alone resulted in the deaths of 4,000 romushas and 1,500 prisoners.

Sixty years after the Japanese Emperor Hirohito conceded defeat, among those marking the victory in the Pacific was a small, largely forgotten group who would once again have to relive their nightmares. Jan Banning has interviewed and photographed just 24 of the Dutch and Indonesian survivors. The haunting images show them as they worked, naked from the waist up. The words elicit, with a matter-of-fact disinterest, the misery of their constant understanding of death; unsurprisingly, after their experiences, they had hitherto been loath to discuss their ordeals.

Banning's Dutch publication of this work all but sold out. Trolley presents the English language version for the many thousands of relatives and children, and the few survivors, who want to know the truths of what happened in Burma and Sumatra.