Indonesia was occupied by the Japanese from 1942-1945. The Japanese quickly overran the Dutch colonial forces, which were weakened by the war in Europe, and established a brutal regime that exploited the country’s resources and forced labor. They placed European and Dutch nationals in concentration camps and in prisoner-of-war camps (90,000 civilians, 40,000 military personnel). The Japanese occupation led to widespread suffering and hardship for the population in the Dutch East Indies, with an estimated four million people dying due to famine, disease, and military action.
Want to learn (more) about WWII in the Dutch East Indies, the Bersiap Period and the Independence War? Watch the 40-minute documentary by Simone Berger & Armando Ello with English subtitles. Meet the Filmmakers: Live Q&A ONLINE on December 3, 2023 11am PST Register and/or send in your questions here An Exceptional Resource The Indo…
By Eric Morgan Interview with Kees Kunstt on Wednesday, November 4, 2015. Oom Kees has always been an active voice in the SoCal Indo community. He and his wife Tante Margie, who are coming up on 45 years of marital bliss, have also been part of the team in helping the long running “De Indo”…
On August 15, 2023, the victims of the Second World War in the former Dutch East Indies were commemorated in over fifty places in the Netherlands. The war experiences and the large-scale displacement that followed are still affecting two million people in the Netherlands with an Indies family war story and in the Dutch society…
By Priscilla Kluge McMullen August 6 & 9, 1945 – Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki While the world mourns and modern historians might accentuate the horrific deaths and devastation caused by these two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese people over seventy years ago, we should not forget that the ultimate effect of these…
by Jane Vogel Mantiri Introduction I met Sonja in October 2011, almost seven decades after Papa was captured by the Japanese, shackled, and forced to work the Death Railway in Siam (Thailand) as a POW (prisoner of war). Papa would endure almost four years of torture before he was released from hell. He never told…
The new book ‘Welcomed by the Smell of Endive’ by Dutch journalist Griselda Molemans (due on March 21, 2014) highlights the true story of how the group of 380,000 displaced persons from the former Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) were received in The Netherlands. Between 1950 and 1970, these Dutch citizens and loyalists were forced…
By Gerard Willem Charles Lemmens The Imperial War Museum in London asked me to write the following story. The Dutch East Indies Around my birth on April 24th, 1940, in the R.C. hospital of Surabaya, my parents bought this rattle at the silversmith—de Wolf—in honor of my birth. I (Gerard Willem Charles Lemmens) was the…
The Netherlands was liberated on May 5th, 1945. On that date, however, there was no liberation of the Dutch East Indies, a former colony of The Netherlands. The Japanese continued to occupy the Dutch East Indies, as well as other parts of Asia, for months, after the liberation of Europe. The (National) Memorial festivities on…