Song of Survival

They survived three-and-a-half years in a Japanese prison camp in Sumatra during World War II. But these courageous women had something special going for them: the great music of Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin. Having no instrument but the human voice, they recreated from memory the complex symphonic music they had loved. Even as disease and malnutrition thinned their rank, these Australian, Dutch and British women - missionaries, teachers, nuns, wives and children - used their unique choir to sustain a spirit that refused to accept defeat.