By Joty ter Kulve. Today’s enemies will be tomorrow’s friends—however unimaginable it might seem. I certainly did not think this when the doors of our concentration camp in Jakarta were thrown open in August 1945. I had just survived the horrors of imprisonment and was full of negative feelings towards the Japanese. Now, seventy years later,…
On Saturday August 15th the Commemoration Ceremony in Los Angeles was opened by Sandra van Lommel Ly – Master of Ceremony. Followed by the invocation by Father Edwin Duyshart. Auke Mensink, President of the Committee 15 augustus 1945, gave a word of welcome, thanking the different organizations present. The Director of the LA National Cemetery,…
3,322 Dutch POW’s worked as slaves in the Mitsubishi mines and shipyards. Published in TROUW newspaper, July 25, 2015. By Griselda Molemans Now that the Japanese company Mitsubishi Materials has offered an apology to all US prisoners of war who had to work as slaves in Japan during World War II, the Dutch government has…
The following speech is by Jesse Eijsbroek, given at the commemoration ceremony in San Francisco on August 2nd, 2015: In June of 1942, the Japanese Empire launched an ambitious military logistics project to connect the existing railways between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma. The line was considered difficult—navigating through hilly jungle terrain and around many…
By Inez Hollander, Ph.D. With the commemoration of the 70th year anniversary of the ending of WWII in Asia, it’s time to look back and look forward, and make sure we share the commemoration of this important year with the next generations to make sure our Indo Dutch legacy doesn’t become a further footnote in history.…
by Inez Hollander This week we received an e-mail from Mindy Kotler at the Asia Policy Point in Washington DC, concerning Japan’s continued historical revisionism with regard to slave labor by POWs at Japan’s foremost industrial sites. The Indo Project is joining a number of POW-organizations in writing a letter to the UN cultural organization,…
By Jamie Stern On Tuesday evening, May 26th, 2015, the Crystal Cove auditorium at UC Irvine filled with guests eager to visit with each other and enjoy the evening’s presentations. This was a very special event, because The Indo Project (TIP) was holding its Second Annual Lecture Series, titled, An Evening With TIP. The Indo…
Join us for the 2nd annual event by The Indo Project at the University of California Irvine. Based on his best-selling memoir, The Railway Man tells the extraordinary and epic true story of Eric Lomax, a British Army officer who is tormented as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp during World War…
A Book Review of Op klompen door de dessa by Hylke Speerstra (Amsterdam: Atlas, 2015) When growing up in The Netherlands, I never realized that part of my family history ran parallel with the rise and demise of the Dutch East Indies. I explored the colonial part of that history in my book Silenced Voices…
Share this news about the Burma-Thailand Railway Compensation. Are you a descendant of the men who worked on the railway line or died on the way there? Please check the name lists and if you see your father’s or grandfather’s name, write to Task Force Indische Rechtsherstel at tfirsecretariaat@ziggo.nl These are the name lists: CHUNGKAI, THAILAND: http://www.wereldoorlog2.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=59…