Under the Java Moon, page 35
Once Japan invaded Java, troops arrived, making their way into towns and establishing command centers. Many historical accounts recall rows of Japanese troops marching into towns. Greta Kwik remembers watching Japanese soldiers enter her mountain town of Ambarawa when she was nine years old: “They had flapping neck pieces hanging from the back of their kepis, and bedrolls, canteens, guns and other things on their backs. Someone carried the Japanese flag in front of the sweating men” (The Defining Years, 215).
Throughout this novel, I’ve included foods either described to me by Marie Vischer, or by a man named Vilas Yang—an Indonesian who is originally from Java, but now lives in Utah. Vilas said that common foods people ate for meals on Java include pecel, gado-gado, soto, sate, nasi kuning, nasi campur, nasi putih, and rawon. Many of the meals would be accompanied by vegetables, peanuts, hard-boiled eggs, fried-shrimp krupuk, boiled potatoes, fried tofu, tempeh, nasi goreng, bahmi goreng, and lontong.
Chapter 8
George Vischer wrote, “Our life jackets were filled with kapok, and soon became heavy and less buoyant. We therefore removed the jackets by day, tied them to our heads so as to give them a chance to drain and dry out, and then put them on again at night. We took it in turns to go into the dinghy to paddle or bail” (The Moth Magazine, March 1990, 5).
On Wednesday, March 4, 1942, George said his crew had their first meal since leaving the Endeh the Sunday before. This meal for seventeen men consisted of a divided coconut and its milk, which amounted to about a three-centimeter square per person (The Moth Magazine, March 1990, 5). Marie Vischer told me that this was just like her father’s personality: “He would have made sure the portions were exact and that everyone received his share.”
Chapter 9
George Vischer recounted that the surviving group had two paddles, life jackets, and three coconuts as they set off on their dinghy in a southerly direction. They knew that a small error in judgment would make them miss their destination—the Thousand Islands (The Moth Magazine, March 1990, 5). They decided to aim for the Thousand Islands because they knew the NEI had evacuated the islands to prevent lights or fires acting as beacons to the Japanese invasion. Besides, the islands contained coconut plantations, and the men could survive on those until they were rescued. The days passed, and George estimated they arrived at the first island at about 15:00 hours on Friday, March 6. The first order of business was performed by First Class Seaman Bakker, who was one of the fittest, climbing to the top of the coconut trees and tossing down coconuts (The Moth Magazine, April 1990, 5).
Chapter 10
By March 1942, regular programming on the radio had stopped. Music played, interrupted every hour by an announcement by General Hein Ter Poorten. When the ceasefire was declared, Ter Poorten advised that everyone had “nothing to fear and should remain calm and carry on as normal” (Tjideng Reunion, 139). But the fact that most of the indigenous population of Indonesia—which outnumbered the European population by a factor of one hundred to one—had sided with the Japanese cause, made the Dutch people’s living situations more precarious (Tjideng Reunion, 141).
Japanese people had been living and working in the NEI for years, so when the invasion happened, some Japanese were already in place to take on official military duties. Rita la Fontaine-de Clercq Zubli was twelve years old when Japanese troops arrived in her town of Jambi, Sumatra. She remembers a former shop owner from town arriving at her home. The high-ranking Japanese officer spoke fluent Dutch, and he informed her family to pack their belongings and official documents, as they needed to register at the police station. Zubli eventually followed a plan concocted by her parish priest as a means of protection; she cut her very long hair short and adopted the life of a boy (The Defining Years, 197–98).
Other young women acted similarly. I based the character of Greta Vos, for example, on the real Greta Kwik, who wrote about her experiences in the essay collection The Defining Years of the Dutch East Indies, 1942–1949. Although Kwik was never interned in a camp, she wrote that rumors of Japanese bordellos needing more women were circulating the area, so her mother cut Greta’s hair short and made her wear her brother’s clothing. Mrs. Kwik even gave her children Chinese names so that they wouldn’t be targeted as being Dutch (215). Some women reported wearing unattractive clothing and not wearing makeup so they wouldn’t attract unwanted attention from a Japanese commander, who they feared “would pursue her and eventually take her as his mistress against her will” (The Defining Years, 119).
Chapter 11
Discovering a lifeboat from the Marula was both a blessing and a sobering reminder of the Dutch navy’s losses. George wrote, “Although the lifeboat was badly damaged, her inventory was 100% intact. Her stores included ship’s biscuits, tins of condensed milk, 12 bottles of Scotch, sea charts, tools, oars, lamps, masts, sails, etc.” The supplies would prove lifesaving to the stranded men (The Moth Magazine, April 1990, 5).
Another joyous find was discovering a small pondok, or bamboo hut, with additional supplies inside. When the group found “a freshwater pond or well at the back,” George wrote, “we were so happy at our findings that we jumped into this pond and swam and washed, making it completely useless for drinking” (The Moth Magazine, April 1990, 5). Soon they found another shelter in the form of a completely furnished bamboo hut, including six Kampong huts nearby. Inside, supplies such as coffee, tea, pans, pots, and crockery had been left behind (ibid).
Chapter 12
The ten Japanese demands were printed in newspapers and announced on the radio, comprising of “relinquishment of all arms, self internment of all military personnel, delivery to the Japanese command of all dead Japanese troops, imprisoned Japanese people and goods formerly belonging to Japanese citizens” (Tjideng Reunion, 141–142). Other demands included stopping “destruction of military equipment, buildings, roads,” and to cease “all communication with the external world,” and finally, “to co-operate with an orderly transition of power to the Japanese authorities” (142).
By August 1942, more detailed rules were posted throughout many towns, announcing the expectation that “all European residents, being members of a conquered people, exhibit deference to dai Nippon, and in particular the Nipponese army.”
Europeans were informed that, among other things:
“Provocative behaviour is unacceptable. . . .
“It is permitted to leave your residence, but only for essential purposes, such as food purchases, doctor visits, etc. One must, moreover, behave properly, not spreading rumors, and they should not transgress the rules of good living. . . .
“Everywhere outside of the home, it is mandatory to express humility when meeting a member of the Nipponese army, regardless of rank. This is done by bowing” (Tjideng Reunion, 171–72).
Chapter 13
The injuries and illnesses suffered by the survivors of the Endeh went untreated for weeks. And without medical supplies, the men’s wounds turned septic. For George, however, this proved to be a blessing in disguise, as his offer to accompany the fishermen who arrived on March 13, 1942, was turned down on account of his wounded foot (The Moth Magazine, April 1990, 5).
Chapter 14
When the Japanese army began rounding up European civilians and taking them to camps, it was under the pretense that they were sending unprotected women and children into “protected areas” since so many men were away fighting. Camps were often located in undesirable parts of town, a tactic the refugees immediately recognized as a “bad omen” (Tjideng Reunion, 175). Tjideng, for example was near a red-light district. Refugees traveling to Tjideng would have reached the concrete bridge that spanned the Tjideng canal, then waited in a line to enter the camp. Just weeks prior, the “protection camp” had been a regular neighborhood. A high gedek wall topped with kawat now ran the perimeter of the neighborhood. Lookout towers and a bamboo guardhouse, complete with a rack of rifles, sat at the camp’s entrance (340). The boundaries of the camp were triangular, consisting of the Tjideng kali canal on the east, the marsh on the north, and the railway on the southwest (353).
In the camps throughout Indonesia, the first roll call of the day was usually held around 6:00 a.m., and the camp would be awakened by sirens or trumpet blasts. Prisoners assembled in groups either in the street at a designated spot on their “neighborhood” block, or in an open space elsewhere in the camp. Roll calls typically lasted an hour, but sometimes went on for much longer. During roll call, the prisoners lined up in rows, held their bows—unless called to attention—then counted off as instructed, in Japanese. Errors meant that the counting would start all over again, elongating the instruction to remain bent over in a bow, no matter the weather conditions (The Defining Years, 21–22).
In her memoir Dutch Girl from Jakarta, Maria Zeeman detailed her experience in Tjideng from 1942 to 1946. At first, conditions weren’t great, but they were allowed to leave the camp once a week to shop at the market. “Then, all of a sudden, the soldiers closed the gates and put a double fence around the camp” (23). The women were no longer allowed to communicate with outsiders who came to the fences and, if they were caught doing so, received swift punishment (ibid).
Chapter 15
George Vischer and his crew waited several days for the return of their comrades who’d volunteered to go with the fishermen in search of more supplies. On March 17, 1942, when a prahu arrived with twenty-five Indonesian natives, the Dutch crew was informed that their friends who’d volunteered had returned to Java. The crew was suspicious of this claim and, as described in this chapter, they chose to leave the island for their own safety. They repaired the damaged lifeboat from the Marula and made their escape to Poeloe Pajoeng, also called Paraplue Island, where they learned from the lighthouse keeper that the four volunteers had been murdered on a nearby island (The Moth Magazine, May 1990, 9).
Chapter 16
Mary Vischer brought along peanuts to Tjideng Camp, which she was able to plant in a little garden during their early months there. Almost everything of value was confiscated during their time at the camp. But the Japanese military was oddly structured in their methods. Marie (Rita) told me, “If it was the day for confiscating pencils, and the Japanese saw a pen lying on the floor, they would not take it that particular day, even though pens had been confiscated previously.”
As the weeks and months progressed, the food situation became more dismal. Marie said, “In the beginning, we received a little rice and seaweed and bread made from starch (or tapioca). You could see through it, and it was hard as a rock. We were only able to chop little pieces at a time and soak it to eat it. My mother made us eat everything we got, no matter how awful it was. The bread and seaweed didn’t last very long, and thereafter we ate one dessert spoon of rice.”
As the camp became increasingly crowded, problems with the sewage system occurred daily, quickly going from bad to worse. Eventually, the situation was beyond repair, and ditches were built to accommodate the women and children. Stepping over sewer ditches filled with a cesspool of human waste became common (Tjideng Reunion, 342). Internees were assigned rotating chores, one of which was cleaning out these ditches. According to Ralph Ockerse and Evelijn Blaney, a brother and sister who lived in Tjideng Camp, “Frequently, cesspools required attention when these began to overflow and had to be emptied with a can or similar container. The occupants at Tjideng had to take turns to do this by the assignment of people to corvees (chores). . . . In fact, there was an overwhelming amount of work that daily needed to be done in Tjideng without further delay, which, under the circumstances, no one else but the internees were responsible for to get it done” (Our Childhood in the Former Colonial Dutch East Indies, 139–40).
On March 27, 1942, by declaration of the Japanese emperor, the date was changed to March 27, 2602. This was because, “by Japanese reckoning, their civilization . . . was some six hundred years older than Western civilization as defined by the onset of the Christian era. The Japanese did not bother changing the calendar any further, and so, aside from the year, all other date references remained the same” (Tjideng Reunion, 152).
Japan also declared that the NEI would begin operating on Tokyo time, which was two hours ahead. The shift caused distress for those inside and outside the camps: “In the tropics the sun normally rises and sets around six o’clock in the morning and evening with hardly any twilight.
“Henceforth the sun would rise at four thirty in the morning and set at four thirty in the evening, a curious disruption causing widespread confusion, especially for the Indonesian workers” (ibid).
When the Dutch were funneled into the internment camps, many of them brought their pets. Unfortunately, they ended up being forced to let their pets go, or have them destroyed (The Defining Years, 15).
There were a few exceptions, and Johan’s experience with his dog is based on a real dog named Keesey, a black retriever who belonged to Andrew van Dyk. Andrew’s family brought Keesey with them to the Cihapit camp. “As soon as the order to eliminate pets was issued, we hastily approached the all-Dutch women’s camp staff to plead our cause to retain him. We had difficulties keeping rats from infesting our overcrowded living quarters, and Keesey was an excellent rat catcher. The Japanese camp commandant had a Japanese doctor evaluate the petition, examine the dog, and advise him on the matter. The end result was that we were permitted to keep Keesey, for a while at least. However, I was to show the camp leader, a Dutch woman, a weekly quota of rats caught” (The Defining Years, 16).
Marie (Rita) Vischer was on the cusp of starting school when her family was sent to Tjideng Camp. Her mother had to get creative, and she was able to procure an old nursery rhyme book. “My pride and joy,” Rita said, “was a thick book with rhymes and short stories, the size of a large Bible. It had torn pages and scribbles in it but I absolutely treasured it!” In addition, a preschool group was put together in the early months of internment that Rita was able to join.
Chapter 17
The account of the Endeh crew receiving help from a skipper who made them a large pot of nashi goreng and directed them to a village on Java follows George’s telling from The Moth Magazine (May 1990, 9).
Ironically, the Dutchmen were first taken to a location at their former naval station at Tandjong Priok, which was now under the control of Japanese soldiers. “We were not treated badly by the Japanese troops,” George remembered. “We were given food, drink and cigarettes.” Then, the following day, they “were taken to the Kempetai in Batavia and, after interrogation, put in a cell in the Glodok prison with two civilians” (ibid).
Chapter 18
It was at Glodok prison camp that George and his crew learned the extent of what had happened in the three weeks they’d been at sea or stranded on islands. In short, they learned that the Battle of Java Sea had been badly lost by the Allies and that the Japanese troops had made their way onto the main island of Java almost immediately. Only one week later, on March 8, 1942, the Royal Dutch East Indies government had formally surrendered. Japan officially occupied the NEI and had begun rounding up everyone with Allied connections: the Dutch, British, American, and French. Men in military service were taken first, followed by the eventual rounding up of everyone else, including women and children (The Defining Years, 73).
Chapter 19
In this chapter, Mary reflects on the surprising kindness of a number of soldiers in the camp, particularly that of a Japanese soldier named Kano. Although his character is fictional, he is based on another Kano, a real soldier who worked in the Ambarawa camp and watched out for a boy named Feite Posthumus. Kano took Feite to visit his ill mother in the hospital a time or two and showed Feite kindness when his mother passed away. Feite wrote that Kano took care to watch out for many of the boys. At one time, “Kano showed up . . . passing along little notes to and from parents in other camps. He kept these notes inside his very ugly [Japanese] baseball cap, an ideal hiding place” (The Defining Years, 179, 181).
Not every soldier under Captain Sonei’s command agreed with his methods of punishment. One of the Korean guards, Noda, was said to have thought that Sonei was a sick and disturbed man. I’ve added the character of Noda to the story since he’s named in Tjideng Reunion (376).
Many of the stories from the internment camps mention how kind the Japanese guards were to the younger children. Annelex Hofstra Layson recalled, “We spent nearly three years at Halmaheira. In all that time we got to know the personalities of our guards. They weren’t all mean. The younger ones were sometimes more lenient—especially to us kids—than the older ones. We even came to think of one, a watchman whose post was near our hut, as our friend. He didn’t get so upset with us if we forgot to bow or how to say something in Japanese exactly right” (Lost Childhood, 67–68).
Chapter 20
When Annelex Hofstra Layson was reunited with her thirteen-year-old brother Jack, he told her about his experiences in one of the men’s prison camps. The boys there “had been given wooden guns and were being trained to fight for the glory of the Japanese emperor. They had been taught to march in the Japanese style, to sing Japanese military songs, and to obey orders without questioning them” (Lost Childhood, 86–87).
Chapter 21
As mandated by the Geneva Convention, the internment camps periodically received Red Cross supplies, although the items didn’t always trickle down to the prisoners. Annelex Hofstra Layson remembered, “Red Cross days were exciting days. There was never anywhere near enough clothes to go around and rarely was anything a perfect fit, but any ‘new’ piece of clothing was cause for celebration. It is impossible to describe the thrill of seeing the Red Cross trucks arrive” (Lost Childhood, 63).
