Nel's Story: Part III: Internment in Work Camp
Kampong Makassar
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Women work camp Kampong Makkassar
Our last camp
Mama’s feeling that something was up, turned out to be correct. We had to go. First that long walk to the station, then those stinking cattle wagons again, half standing, half hanging. When we finally arrived in Batavia we had to walk all the way to the camp Kampong Makassar. It was 17 March 1945.
“……..One of the Japs — in a confidential mood
- explained that Rangoon had taught them that they had made an error of
judgement: they had placed the interned men at the coast; the women in the
interior.
When the allied forces occupied Rangoon they found the men immediately
prepared to help by freeing the women.
As they were now expecting an attack on Java within two months, they were
planning to do it differently: ‘we will place the women at the coast; the
men in
the interior. When the allied forces then arrive, they will be hindered in
their military actions by the presence of thousands of women and children who
will beg for food and who would need to be taken care of’.
Based on this reasoning Batavia (now Jakarta) would have to become one
enormous camp for women!
Bent over their eternal administration in their headquarters in Bandung, the
Japs had already transported us on paper to the already overpopulated camps on
the coast.
They themselves had a most curious appraisement for these paradises, with two
extremes: ‘Tjideng’ as a place of punishment under the infamous Sonei
and ‘Kampong Makassar’, an Eden of fresh air, vegetables and fruit [for
the Japs of course].
We ended up in this Eden”. (the above is an excerpt from the book ‘Het
Verbluffende Kamp’ by Ko Luijckx, publishers A D M C Stok, Zuidhollandsche
Uitgevers Mij., Den Haag)
The whole camp housed approximately 3500 women and children who were divided
amongst 19 barracks. After having to wait a long time we were allocated hut
14. They told us to pick a place. There were almost 200 of us women and
children, most of them very small, in that hut. We were allocated 60
centimetre per adult and 45 centimetre per child. Not too spacious, but
‘sudah’ (never mind) we could sleep. We covered the lumpy and filthy
mattresses with a sheet. Another was pinned up as a wall and we then had the
feeling we had our own little ‘house’, ouw own private place. The small
case served as a table on which I had put the photographs of papa and Rob.
Every morning, afternoon and evening we had to go and stand in front of our
barracks and bow ‘keirei!’ for the Emperor! If you did not bow correctly,
even a centimetre too high or too low, you would be beaten. As this camp was a
working camp, everybody had to work, outside on the fields, inside in the
pigsties, kitchen, hospital or was put to work in the building group who
maintained and built the barracks.
The day after our arrival we were ‘medically’
inspected. Never mind how weak you might be or whether you suffered from
dysentery, etc., if your legs looked fine, that’s to say, not too swollen
from oedema, you were strong enough to work. Older women like my mother were
given the care of the small children. Mama would be looking after Robke. I was
allocated garden duty and had to irrigate the gardens. That meant ladling out
some human excrement with a small tin from the cess-pit behind the latrines.
My tin was exceptionally small, but sudah, I had to do it.
From the cess-pit, forming a long file to the garden (garden 3) outside the
camp, to a tomato field alongside the ‘kali’ (small river). Then dumping
the manure around a tomato plant, trudging back again, collecting some more
shit and once more back to the tomato plants — day in, day out.
One day, I slipped when I was ladling more manure for the tomato plants. I
fell into the cess-pit where I rapidly sank up to my neck. Lucky for me one of
the women was quick-thinking and grabbed me by my hair to keep my head above
the filth. With all their might they were able to drag me out. Thank God I had
been a ‘good girl’ lately and had not had my head shaven for a while,
otherwise……
I had a lot of trouble getting cleaned up. First the women rolled me through
the grass and later they ‘donated’ a few buckets of water, for which I was
very grateful, for we only received a few buckets-full per person. When I was
‘clean’, another dear soul poured the rest of some of her old perfume over
me, which was not such a good idea after all. That night my closer bed-fellows
requested me to sleep outside the barrack. Mother told me also that the smell
made her feel sick. I wonder what is worse: the smell of shit, stale perfume
or the combination of the two?
I seem to have had continuous situations to do with
baths. When we were working in the fields, it was always a race to be one of
the first to get to the bathing hut, for then you would have more water.
Everybody of course juggled with her allocated water
supply. One bad day I took a shortcut, together with one of my hut mates,
through a hole in the fence enclosing the Tenko field. We were the first and
had loads of water! We gleefully soaped ourselves, but did not get the chance
to rinse it off. The filthy Jap had spotted us and ordered us to get out
immediately, naked and still covered with soap. We had to stand there, on a
step on the Tenko field, for the remainder of the day beneath the burning sun.
For a long time after, we would foam whenever we rubbed a wet finger over our
skin, which also became very dry and somewhat painful.
One other bad day, the self-same Jap gave me a beating. He probably didn’t think I had bowed low or quick enough. Anyway, I fell to the ground when he hit me and he started to kick me in the stomach with his big, heavy boots. In the camp hospital, the female doctor diagnosed a possible internal bleeding and tried all sorts of things. It stayed very sensitive right up till the end of the war. Much later, in Holland, they discovered that the Jap had done quite a bit of damage and it was diagnosed I had no abdominal muscles left and for the rest of my life had to be content with a ‘hang belly’.
Those who did extra camp duties on top of all the hard work already done, would receive ‘corvee’ rations — extra fatigue duty rations — , a small amount of almost inedible bread which should weigh 110 grams but often would weigh no more than 65 grams. Small and bad as these extra rations were, they often made a difference between life or death.
Complaining about more rations was of no help, to the
contrary. When sixteen of us from our hut, at the beginning of July, rebelled
and asked for more and better quality, we had our heads shaved as a
humiliation and thrown in a very small, windowless punishment hut. The
following day all the food for that day was gathered up and taken to the big
field. We had to dig a large pit and throw our food in and cover it with earth.
The whole camp then was denied food for two days. The camp hospital also had
to share in this scandalous punishment. The Japs also switched off the water
supply where they could.
This has been the worst punishment ever.
On certain days there were some handouts in the
‘toko’ (shop), a very large word for such an insignificant establishment.
Sometimes we were given some tobacco, at other times some sugar or ‘sambal
‘(a very spicy pickle made from chilli peppers), to give your ‘meal’ a
little more taste.
When I worked in the camp hospital, Robke, small as she was, would take my
place to stand in the queue for the handout to start. From where I worked I
could keep an eye on her and when it was her turn I could go and receive
whatever was being given. The weird thing was that little Robke would not eat
from the sugar, but would devour all the sambal if she got the chance. Maybe
her body knew it needed the vitamins.
Freedom on the horizon
When we heard, on 17 August 1945, that the war was
over we found it difficult to take it in. But how happy we were. However, we
were still not allowed to leave the camp, because the Indonesian population
was not to be trusted. No, that is not true, only the younger ones who had
been in collusion with the Japs and worked with them could not be trusted.
We had no courage to flee the camp.
One day, though, men arrived in search for their
wives and children Oh, what a sad sight that was, all those skeletal-like men
only clothed in a ‘tjawat’ (loin cloth).
In their hundreds the women and children flew towards the gate to see whether
their husband and father was amongst them.
Robke, loudly shrieking, came running into the hospital.
‘Mama, quick. To the gate! Otherwise all the daddies will be gone!’
What did she know what a daddy was. She had so often stood in the queue when
something was handed out and thought we might miss out if we weren’t there
quick enough.
That moment I felt like crying. I told her she already had a daddy, that the
man on the photograph was her daddy.
It took several weeks before we were allowed to leave
the camp. Robke and I were taken to the hotel Der Nederlanden in Batavia
(Jakarta) and were given a room with a real bed close to a real ‘mandi’ (bath)
room. O, that bathroom! All that fresh water, not only in one measured
‘gajong’ (bucket), but an endless amount of ‘gajongs’, as many as I
wanted. How often did I bathe then!
The dining room! What a miracle that was after all those dreadful years and
that awful food! We did not just eat during this period; we gorged ourselves!
Robke discovered there were enough ‘pisangs’ (bananas) to take some back
to the room. It was a feast for the eyes to see that child savour her food.
She had been deprived of so much all those years.
I wondered how she would react to all the new experiences.
While we were in Batavia, I had violent headaches and
was admitted to hospital. There they discovered I had meningitis and to
relieve the pressure of all the pus, they had to drill some holes into my
skull. Once again I ended up with a shaven head. Once out of hospital I
covered it with a cloth from under which some hair peeped —
kindly donated by my friends. It was sewn into the material and it looked as
if I had a full head of hair!
Note: Later on in Holland, a passerby saw a burning
cigarette end, thrown from an upstairs window,land on top of Nel’s headscarf.
He quickly wrenched it off her head and then recoiled in disgust, calling
out‘You dirty ‘Moffenhoer!’ (Jerry whore!)
(The Dutch women who had been intimate with the occupying forces had their
heads shaven as punishment after the capitulation)
Repatriation
Being a widow with a child, I had no choice in
whether I wanted to stay in Indonesia or leave. As I had no means to support
myself and my child, we had leave for Holland on the first repatriation ship.
This was the liner ‘Nieuw Amsterdam’. But first we had to be taken to
Singapore. The ship we found ourselves on was an old trader, called the
‘Stavanger’. We were all given swimming vests to wear and most women found
a spot down into the hold. I refused to go down and took refuge on deck, next
to the galley. It was a very frightening journey and later I heard that many
similar ships full of women and children perished after hitting mines.
In Singapore we embarked on the ‘Nieuw Amsterdam’ which also took on board
British POWs from the Burma line due for Southampton. Quite a combination:
widows and POWs who had not seen a woman for more than three years! Though
were they got the energy from?
Robke managed the long boat trip quite well. For her
it seemed one big feast after the other. There was no bed for her, but the
purser made a bed up for her in the bath, made very comfortable with blankets
and pillows. The purser was crazy about her. He made sure she was given a warm
jacket, made from a grey blanket, which was necessary for it was going to be
cold in Holland where we would arrive in January.
A British serviceman was also taken with my child. At first I thought he had
designs on me, but he showed me a picture of his own daughter, taken at the
same age as Robke was then, and the likeness was uncanny. He spoiled her
rotten and took her all over the ship, giving me some longed for privacy.
In Aden we were given clothing which had come from donations from people in
Britain. It was meant well, but a lot of the clothing was very unsuitable.
Robke lost out for she was in sick bay with measles at that moment and the
whole sick bay was overlooked.
In Southampton the British POWs left the Nieuw Amsterdam. The British soldier said a tearful goodbye to Robke. We had exchanged addresses but never followed this up.
Holland
January 1946 in Holland. It was freezing!
When we steamed into the harbour we were told that Princess Juliana would come
on board to welcome us. The railing where Robke and I were standing, was
opened up and when the Princess stepped out of her car and walked up the
gangway, Robke saw something she had never seen in her whole life — frozen
water on which people were skating.
‘Mama, what are those people doing there?’ she asked, rather loudly.
I answered: ‘They are skating on the water. The water is frozen because it
is so cold, you know.’
Enthusiastically she yelled ‘Oh, lots of Jesuses on the water! Wonderful,
isn’t it mama?’
At that moment Princess Juliana stepped on board and hearing what Robke said,
lifted her up, took her in her arms and gave her a big kiss. She then asked me
what Robke had meant. I quickly explained and said that the story of Jesus
walking on the water had always been a favourite and she thought that all
those skating people……
After listening to this story, Juliana laid her hand against my cheek, smiled
and said ‘Welcome and God bless you’ and walked on.
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