SINGAPORE, 7 October 2003 — Efforts are mounting to save Changi Prison from being torn down as veterans and conservationists claim the notorious prisoner of war camp is part of a global heritage and should not be sacrificed in Singapore’s zeal to modernize.
“It’s so much a part of our past,” said Pearce Lindsey, an Australian visitor who brought his family to see the site where nearly 15,000 of their countrymen were incarcerated after Singapore fell to the Japanese in World War II.
“It would be terrible to leave nothing of the prison for future generations,” said Lindsey, echoing widespread sentiments generated since Singapore unveiled last year plans to demolish the jail which held Allied troops under the harshest conditions.
Built by the British colonialists in 1936 and currently holding about 2,000 inmates, plans are to replace Changi with a 1 billion Singapore dollar (US$570 million) mega-prison complex in 2005.
Work is scheduled to begin next year, but those championing preservation of the most significant parts are hopeful their pleas will still make a difference. “That timetable is not absolute,” said Changi Museum manager Simon Goh amid indications plans are under review. “We’re not giving up.”
Goh wants to see at least the entrance and guard towers preserved. Others are calling for far more, including at least a block of the original jail incorporated in a display that is open to the public.
“Ideally the prison should be retained wholly,” said museum director Jeyathurai Ayadurai. “If not, then the critical components of the structure should be preserved.”
Bus loads of visitors and others see the massive structure daily from the road leading to the museum where photographs of the skeletal prisoners, letters and personal mementoes depict the pain, torture and suffering meted out to those confined between 1942 and 1945 at the prison and surrounding areas.
About 76,000 prisoners were confined there. More Australian POWs perished under incarceration than in battle. In addition to the Australians, the prison population included 39,000 British, Americans, Dutch and 15,000 local soldiers. Among them were men from the Singapore Volunteer Corp and the Malay Regiment.
Thousands of civilians were also held.
Up to one quarter of the prisoners perished behind bars under harsh treatment. Many others dispatched by the Japanese from Changi to work on the Burma or “Death Railway” met the same fate.
At the prison chapel by the museum, a replica of the one used by the incarcerated during the war, survivors and relatives of those who perished are often moved to tears. Many scribble notes and insert them between the wooden planks making up the walls.
“In memory of my grandfather who was a prisoner for three-and-a-half years,” said one. “Lived a long life, but never forgot the hell that was Changi.”
“I love you and miss you,” wrote the daughter of an English inmate who died there.
Others pledge eternal remembrance of the sufferings the prisoners endured.
So many messages are left Goh said the ones that have faded have to be removed every few months. “They are not thrown away. We keep those that are signed, even with initials, on record.”
The Preservation of Monuments Board has been talking with the Prisons Department and the Urban Redevelopment Authority about saving at least some of the prison.
“Structurally, it cannot be run as a modern prison to support our vision-centered rehabilitation philosophy and framework,” a prisons spokesman said. But preserving its heritage through documentation and tours through the museum is not enough for those who want at least a section of the original.
The museum and its chapel would pale in impact if nothing is left of the facility, said British tourist Julie Edwards, who has visited many World War II sites kept intact.
Preserving at least some parts has been raised by several Australian ministers during talks with their Singapore counterparts.
The latest was Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, who said he believed Singapore authorities “are sensitive to our views” after talks with Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in late September.
Even lawyers who have visited the prison over the years to meet with clients have expressed concern that the landmark features were not being sufficiently appreciated. “The prison was built by the British, run by the Japanese, housed the Australians (and other POWs) before it reverted to colonial and then independent Singapore,” said Senior Counsel R. Palakrishnan.
The modern trend, Palakrishnan said, is not to demolish structures which are unique and of historical value, but to build around them in such a way that the existing facades are retained.
