Vol. 10 (2022): Crisis and Spiritual Transformation
Articles

Friendship In Troubled Times: The Friendship Of Jan Ruff-O’Herne

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  • Roderick O’Brien

Published 2023-05-12

How to Cite

O’Brien, R. (2023). Friendship In Troubled Times: The Friendship Of Jan Ruff-O’Herne. The Journal of the Macau Ricci Institute, 10. Retrieved from https://journals.usj.edu.mo/index.php/mrijournal/article/view/94

Copyright (c) 2023 Roderick O’Brien

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

　　Friendship is a key relationship in many cultures. (Lu et al, 2020) In this paper, I would like to present a single example of friendship in dire circumstances. The friendship described here occurred during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) when a group of young women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. The description here is part of a wider study of the spirituality of Jeanne Alida “Jan” Ruff-O'Herne, one of those young women. In the first part of the paper, I will provide a brief outline of her life, while the second part will provide some reflections on friendship, which I have drawn from her experience.

Eng CN (简体中文)