When There Were Tigers in Singapore

Japan invades and captures the British colony of Singapore in 1942. All Europeans on the island are being interned. Edward Schirmer, the author's grandfather, faces a dilemma--he is German but born as a British subject. In a strange stroke of fortune, he finds himself friends with General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the famed "Tiger of Malaya." Seeing the fate of the other Europeans, Edward reluctantlylets the Japanese assume he is a friendly German national. But when politics removes the protective Yamashita from the picture, betrayal ensues and Edward finds himself in prison, his family scattered.
This true-life account then moves on through the eyes of Edward's son, Hans Schirmer--a six-year-old boy's hellish quest for survival, alone on the streets of a war-torn vanquished nation. Where everyone is hungry and racial tension is rife. Where martial law allows the occupiers to summarily execute at will. Amid these horrors, this young boy learns to live, while witnessing an epic moment in history.