Beaver choir to raise voices for female WWII prisoners

BEAVER, PA — Ripped away from loved ones, isolated by
language barriers, subjected to the horrors of a World War II
prison camp, a group of women clung to hope by singing.

The 30 female prisoners — mainly Dutch, English and Australian
nuns, nurses, teachers and wives of military men — surprised fellow
prisoners with a concert on Dec. 27, 1943, from behind the barbed
wire of the Palembang Prison Camp on the island of Sumatra.

The music those women bravely performed that day will be
reprised 67 years later in an Oct. 24 “Song of Survival” concert at
First Presbyterian Church in Beaver. A church choir of 17 women
will sing the songs a cappella, interspersed with narration that
outlines the story of the original singers.