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Welcome to the web site of the Guest Lecturers on World War II in Asia
(Gastdocenten Wereldoorlog II in Zuid-OostAzië)!

Secretary: Mrs Connie E. Suverkropp, Bosdrift 148, 1215 AR Hilversum. phone +31-35-6249608, e-mail consuv@hetnet.nl   

 

 

Dear Visitor,

We are a group of 120+ resource persons on World War II in Asia. Born before 1945, we experienced the Japanese occupation of what was then the Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia. In primary and secondary schools in the Netherlands we offer guest lectures in history to students 11-18 years old, in which we present our personal recollections of those war years against the background of historical facts.

We welcome everybody to take a look at the English-language part of our web site. We find that a good many Dutch who share our experience have migrated to countries like Australia, Canada, the USA, and New Zealand, to name a few. They have an interest to reflect on the information on our site. We are also aiming our efforts at the present generation of Japanese people, who know virtually nothing about their country's recent war history. For them we are offering some Japanese-language information.

Japan vs Germany.
Compare the post wartime official and societal attitudes of Germany and Japan tells significant stories how much Japan is still in denial and refuse to take its share of responsibilities.

     POWS and Internees Execution dates set before Atom Bombs

      Nel's Story: Part III: Internment in Work Camp Kampong Makassar

      Dutch welcome royals under cloud of WWII issues

      Foreign A-bomb victims are all but forgotten

      Juni 1945 Birthday

      the Dutch hospitalship Oranje

       the Oranje
       The new Brisbane Monument
         Circumstances
        Mother, have I deeply enough bowed
       Books written by eyewitnesses of WW II Pacific Area
       Demonstrators ask for Japan's acknowledgement of WWII crimes

Requiem to the memory of Robbie T.
*25-03-1931 - † 14-04-1945

Tjimahi, 1945

    He was only fourteen                                          A cart
    when he died of starvation                                      carries his emaciated body
    In a Japanese concentration camp-                     to the cemetery;
    how he cried for his mother,                               lying on the cart, so small,
    his mother so far away from him.                       enveloped in a tikar 1

    The funeral procession:                                       We dig a hole
    two men, one boy                                                  - seemingly unmoved -
    and one Japanese -                                               and lay him down
    only clattering wheels                                           in fertile soil
    break the silence in the street                              somewhere in the Preanger  2

    Cimahi, 1995

    Again I walk the road                                          A cross bearings his name
   from the camp to the cemetery                             in the burial-ground of Leuwigajah 3
    shortly after dawn;                                               is all that's left of him.
    rising mists and                                                   While laying down flowers
    memories falling on me                                        I still hear him cry

1 a mat of palm leaves             2 a region on Western Java           3  near Cimahi

 The text above  is derived from the Dutch Haiku/Tanka anthology "Het rood van Karpers"by P. Dietze. Publishers: De Beuk Amsterdam, 1996.
The English translation by E van Agtmaal; The Japanese translation by Fuyuto Tomita Molenkamp 

 

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