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Survivors’ Stories

Going to Mother in Banju Biru – Part Two

We learned that mother was hospitalized. She had almost died in a long struggle against typhoid. When mother saw us she said very weakly “Dag Gerard en Piet”. How sweet to hear my mother’s voice! I couldn’t believe how emaciated she was; I had never seen her so thin. Words failed to express the feelings that we experienced. It gave us great joy to tell her that father was still alive. How we enjoyed just being together again.

Piet and I related some of our dreadful camp experiences. Just before the capitulation of Japan my father, Piet and I had been moved to camp Tjitjalenka, where we had to build a railroad for the Japanese. We went through an absolutely horrendous and depressing time and were at the point of despair. Although we had been promised better food, it never came. Lies, all lies: the food was deplorable, the water supply almost non-existent, the heat oppressive and the forced labor on the railroad so difficult that it had almost killed us. We had to work seven days a week, from sunrise to sunset. Had it not been for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent cessation of war, we would all have perished.

We stayed in Banju Biro for about a week, and even though mother pleaded with us to stay, we felt that we had to return to father to bring him the good news that his wife and daughters were alive. We decided to take Jan with us as a surprise for father. Mother wept, gave us a letter for father and kept pleading, “Be careful, be very careful.”

The political situation in Indonesia was very volatile. On the very day we left Banju Biru the Bersiap broke out in all its fury. We had no idea what awaited us on our return journey and even we three boys were taking a tremendous chance. We were transported by truck to the train station in Ambarawa. Again the trains were overloaded. For some unknown reason all the Europeans were told to move into one train car, creating an uncomfortably small minority of passengers. In the afternoon we arrived at the bustling station Toegoe  in Djokja, where we met some Indonesian acquaintances, who had heard that we had all died in the concentration camps. They put us up for the night; how we appreciated their warm hospitality.

Early the following morning we walked to the train station accompanied by a member of our friends’ household. We heard a racket and saw a group of Indonesian young men writing graffiti on a wall; then  they threatened us with spears and bamboo sticks, yelling Merdeka (freedom) and Bersiap (change). At that time we didn’t know what those words meant, but they sounded threatening. To our horror we saw more groups of  threatening Indonesian youths. Our friend told us to ignore them and just keep on walking. To our relief we arrived at the station without incident. There were many Dutch women and children who, like us, were trying to find family members.

Hundreds of Indonesians were trying to board the train as well. It was almost impossible to get on. We could feel that the day would be very hot, muggy and tiring. Inside the train it had become unbearably hot already; children were starting to cry; the bathroom facilities were inadequate for so many people. We were beginning to feel like genuine refugees. Finally the train left.

by Gerard Mobach                                                         Previously published in “Four Years till Tomorrow”

To be continued

Questions? Comments? Please leave them below

Until next time,

Ronny

 

After the Japanese capitulation another war erupted, called “the Bersiap” (Indonesion word for “get ready”). Gerard Mobach, who survived the camps, describes his experiences during this extremely bloody fight for independence by young extremists, led by their newly appointed president Soekarno.

Going to Mother in Banju Biru

In 1930 my father, Jan Willem Mobach, answered the call of the Dutch Government to become a teacher in a Dutch Christian school in Yogyakarta on Java. As a result, our family moved from Holland to the Dutch East Indies. There were five of us at the time: father, mother, Piet (four years old), myself (three years old) and Jan (two years old). During the years there, three sisters were born: the twins Wil and Aaf, and Annie. Ours was a busy and happy household until World War Two disrupted it all.

Java fell to the Japanese on March 8, 1942. My father was taken prisoner and was moved to Fort Vreeburg in Djokja in June 1942. After that, hard times descended upon the Mobach family. There was less and less to eat with no money coming in and no father at home. Somehow mother managed to keep things going until we, too, were forced from home and sent to the first of several camps on December 27, 1942. Piet and I ended up in camp Tjimahi. My story begins with our final period in Indonesia, starting with our last days in Tjimahi.

It was September 1945, the eve of the Bersiap time. Although the war had officially ended on August 15, 1945,  we still remained in the concentration camps for our own protection. The camps were in a kind of “power vacuum”. We were guarded by the Japanese on behalf of the British, as the Allied troops had not yet arrived.

From other prisoners we had heard that my mother was in Camp 11, Banju Biru, so my brother Piet and I decided to go and see her. Father, who had ended up in our camp, Tjimahi, did not really want us to go, but we had been planning this trip for weeks and weeks. I somehow had to prove to myself that I also could do what others were doing, namely leave the camps, without official permission, to look for loved ones. I had to know if my mother and sisters were still alive.

One evening, just after dark, Piet and I crept under the barbed wire fence, crossed a ditch, and ran across a part of a race-track to the kampong (village). We heard shots. Our hearts were pounding but we kept on running. Out of breath, we arrived at the home of Indonesian friends of my father’s, who were expecting us. They took us in for the night, fed us, and gave us clothing and food for the trip.

Very early the next morning we went to the train station in Bandung. The train was overcrowded with native Indonesians hanging or sitting on every conceivable railing, window sill and rooftop of the train. Since the windows were wide open, we were soon covered in soot. Piet and I were probably the only white people on the train, and it felt strange. We reached Djokja towards the evening. A committee of Indo-Dutch people met us at the railway station and put us up in a first-class hotel.

The following morning a committee member helped us to get tickets for Magelan. Native Indonesian groups of young men who would have given us the right of way on the street before the war now did not move aside. We had to walk around them. It gave us an uneasy feeling; for the first time we noticed hatred towards us, the white people, or belandas. We felt very insecure and threatened.

The train to Magelan was overcrowed too. At every stop more people boarded the train till at last it was bursting at the seams. We were very hot, thirsty and uncomfortable. At Magelan, an extra mountain locomotive was hitched to the train to pull us up the mountains to Ambarawa. As the train progressed, we could catch glimpses of the beautiful tropical countryside of Java, with its lush rice fields and palm trees.

After arriving in Ambarawa, we went the last distance to Banju Biru where our mother and sisters were supposed to be. We had not seen them for about two and a half years! We had survived a trip of 400 kilometers at a very uncertain and dangerous time. Our hearts were racing with anticipation. What would mother look like? Would the girls have grown a lot? Piet and I rushed to the gates of Banju Biru. Much to our surprise, we saw Jan, who was supposed to be at Ambarawa; then we saw our twin sisters, and our sister Annie. Everyone was astounded at our unexpected arrival – they could not believe we were really there. But we were! There was an unspeakable emotion as we cried, hugged, laughed and talked.

By Gerard Mobach                                                     Published previously in “Four Years till Tomorrow”

To be continued

Feel free to leave a comment!

Until next time,

Ronny

Survivors’ Stories

Hannie Blaauw – Conclusion

It was hot on the road back to Camp Tjimahi. Hannie walked at a steady pace, his feet starting to ache  underneath the hard rubber strap of his klètèks. After an hour, knowing that he was not even  half way, he was so thirsty that he decided to get something to drink at a warung (small open air café selling cold bottled drinks) in the next kampong (small village). He walked into the kampong, wondering if they would have anything to drink so soon after the war. Even a cup of water would be good though, and the thought of cool water made him smile.

Suddenly, a man blocked his path. “Go back to your camp,” the man said urgently. “Go quickly, hurry! Lekas, lekas, because terrible things are about to happen.” When Hannie looked up, the man was gone. “That must have been my guardian angel,” Hannie thought, and without another look at the warung in the distance he turned around, back to the road, and as fast as his legs could carry him he hurried, his klètèks making a nervous sound, faster and faster, back to Tjimahi.

The next day, the Bersiap (Indonesian term meaning ‘get ready’) started: the violent and chaotic fight for independence of the Indonesian extremists right after World War Two. Young freedom fighters roamed the countryside, brutally killing all people in sight. Hannie was safe behind the closed gates of Camp Tjimahi.

Fast forward: Hannie went to the Netherlands by way of Singapore. Several years later, he found his sweetheart, Nellie; they got married in 1958 and emigrated to the USA in 1961. They were blessed with a son and two daughters and made a good life for themselves in California, after the initial difficult years as penniless immigrants.

In 1997 they moved to Prescott. Hannie competed in the Prescott Senior Olympics for years, winning gold and silver; for many years he volunteered at Meals on Wheals together with Nellie. When Nellie passed away, Hannie, supported by his many friends, carried on, cooking his own meals, volunteering, playing tennis, and taking care of his little puppy Scotty, his new companion. When Hannie was 86, his daughter decided he lived too far away from her, and in June of 2013, Hannie moved with Scotty to a town in the California desert.

After a week, he called enthusiastically: “Ronny! There are eight tennis courts close by, and two swimming pools!” Two weeks later: “Ronny, I have nobody to play with. I guess I have to wait for the snowbirds”. He never complained, but set out to make new friends. He offered to volunteer at the local hospital, but they had no use for him. In October, he called and said, “Ronny! I joined the church choir, a very large choir!”
“You did?” I said, “I did not know you could sing.”
“I can’t,” Hannie said, “I cannot even read notes, but they accepted me and I am singing along. Pretty soon we will start rehearsing for Christmas.”

And make new friends he did! He discovered pickle ball and is now an enthusiastic player with many other seniors in his town. The latest thing he told me was that he had purchased a ukulele and is taking classes. But learning to read notes is one thing, learning to read chords and then produce sounds with your eighty-six-year-old fingers is something else. “You are my Sunshine” is difficult for him to learn, but I bet that one day he will play it beautifully.

On April 1st of this year Hannie will celebrate his 87th birthday. Life threw him many curve balls, but Hannie knew how to swing to get far; he never gave up hope, he reached out to others even when he had to start over in a strange new environment, far away from his old friends. He lives his life one day at a time, grateful for what he has today, thankful to live in this beautiful country, knowing that God has a plan for him, a plan to prosper and not for harm, a plan to give him hope, a plan for his future.

If you want to congratulate Hannie on his 87th birthday, please leave a comment below. Hannie has no computer, but I will forward all comments to him by mail.

I hope you enjoyed Hannie’s uplifting stories about his time in captivity and his positive outlook on life: the secret to live to a ripe old age.

Until next time,

Ronny

 

Survivors’ Stories

Hannie Blaauw – Part Three

Very early in the morning, when the sun just rose above the horizon, Hannie left Camp Tjimahi, walking west in the direction of Bandung.

His brother Adriaan was a military nurse in charge of treating patients in the small camp hospital in camp Tjikudapateuh. Working with very limited supplies during the war, he had witnessed the deaths of many fellow prisoners who could have been helped with better medication. But the supplies sent to the camps by the Red Cross were never distributed by the Japanese, and they bluntly refused actual visits by the international committee of the Red Cross to inspect the camps or limited them to a brief conversation with the camp commander – they allowed absolutely no contact with the prisoners.

On August 15 the war was over, the gates of the camps were opened and the prisoners  were free to leave. Many remained temporarily because they didn’t know where to go or were waiting to reconnect with family members and relatives in other camps. Adriaan, Hannie’s brother, had to stay in his camp to treat sick Japanese in the hospital.

Through the sawahs (rice fields) Hannie walked, passing kampungs (small villages) along the way, as the sun burned down on his head and bare arms. His kleteks (wooden slippers with a goat-leather or rubber band across the toes and pieces of car tires under the heels) made a happy sound on the pavement: kletek, kletek, and his heart sang, ‘I’m going to see Adriaan, I’m going to see my brother!’ It was a long walk, but after about three hours he finally reached his destination and walked through the gates of the camp. Without too much trouble Hannie found the hospital, walked in and asked for Adriaan. With a broad smile on his face he embraced his brother when he walked in, totally surprised.

It was a tearful reunion – the four years of hardship, hunger and horrors had left indelible marks on the young men and after Adriaan had asked permission to take the rest of the day off they went outside, and talked for hours in the shade of a waringin (banyan tree). Time went by very quickly and they went to the camp kitchen to get something to eat. It wasn’t much, a bowl of rice and a ladle of soup, but the soup had meat in it, and vegetables, and it was plenty after the camp ration the brothers were used to: the war was over!

Before they knew it, the sun was setting and they realized it was too late for Hannie to return to Tjimahi in time for curfew. “You can stay here,” urged Adriaan, “come with me.” Together they walked through the hospital to the operating room; Adriaan took a key from his pocket and opened the door. “You can sleep right here, on the floor underneath the operating table. Sleep well, I will come and get you in the morning.”

Hannie fell into a deep sleep, exhausted from the long walk and the happy reunion with his brother. He awoke with a shock when bright lights went on and a booming voice said, “I’ll be damned! What have we here? Who are you? What are you doing here? Get out, get up!”
“I’m Hannie, Adriaan’s brother,” Hannie said. “I walked here yesterday from camp Tjimahi to see my brother, and then it was too late to return to my camp before curfew, so Adriaan let me sleep here.”
“All right then, but you gave me the scare of my life,” said the surgeon, and Hannie walked out of the room and went in search of his brother.

In the early afternoon they said good bye and Hannie left after they promised each other that soon they would find their mother in camp Kramat and leave Java together in search of a better future in Holland.

To be continued

I welcome your comments. Perhaps you have camp stories of your own you want to tell me? I will be happy to host you on my blog.

Until next time,

Ronny

 

 

 

Survivors’ Stories

Hannie Blaauw – Part Two

One of Hannie’s fellow prisoners had a small radio. One day, he whispered to Hannie, “Hannie, come, listen! The Americans dropped a bomb on Hiroshima in Japan! Lots of dead Japs, man! Perhaps they will surrender.”

But the Japanese did not give up that easily. For help they turned to Russia, with which they had a Non-aggression Pact for five years. However, the Pact had ended on August 6, 1945, and Russia refused help. The Allies dropped a second bomb, this time on Nagasaki, on August 9. Still the Japanese did not surrender. Why not? Researchers found out that Japan tested an atomic bomb of their own, which they had just finished, on one of their small islands in the north. It failed. Only then Emperor Hirohito announced “Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives”, referring to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that occurred days before. He, however, never mentioned the Soviet invasion that had also begun a few days before. Finally, and most famously, he said: “However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that We have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is unsufferable.”

Eighteen-year-old Hannie Blaauw and his fellow prisoners were unaware of all of this, but the tension in the camp grew. Finally, they were liberated along with 10,000 other Dutch, French, Australian, British and American POWs on August 15, 1945. However, during the years that followed it was not safe to leave the camps because young freedom fighters, led by newly elected President Soekarno, started a bloody fight for their independence from the Dutch with weapons acquired from the Japanese. It would last almost two years and cost the lives of more than 20,000 innocent people. Japanese soldiers shipped in from Formosa were assigned to protect the prisoners who were still in the camps; the gates were open, but at night curfew was strictly enforced.

Lists of prisoners in other camps circulated among the inmates in Camp Tjimahi. Hannie found out that his mother was in camp Kramat near Batavia, and on another list he discovered to his great joy the name of his brother Adriaan in camp Tjikudapateuh near Bandung. Immediately he made plans to go visit him.

To be continued.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Until next time,

Ronny

Survivors’ Stories

Hannie Blaauw (pronounce as: Honey)

I have a friend, a very special friend. I met him about ten years ago when I moved to Arizona. Born and raised on Java, he is eleven years older than I, so he was a teenager during the years of Japanese oppression. He survived the camps, as did I, but he personally remembers the cruelties he witnessed. He was always hungry. He had camp sores and tropical diseases like all of us, but he survived thanks to his sense of humor and his guardian angel who protected him many times in harrowing situations. Following, with his permission, is part of his story.

Born in Tegal, Hannie had three brothers; the oldest one died before the war as did his dad. When the Japanese occupied the island, the family was separated; his mother was sent to a women’s camp, one of his brothers, who had an education as a nurse with the Red Cross, was put to work in a camp hospital in Bandung. Hannie and his younger brother were put in camp Tjimahi together.

Food was scarce. Breakfast consisted of a ball of starch with brown sugar. Lunch consisted of bread made with the yeast of human urine and dinner was a soupy mixture of 100 grams of rice mixed with water and chopped white radish. Hannie was so malnourished that he could hardly walk. Deaths were common at the camp; an average of six people would die every day from numerous diseases, dysentery and malnutrition.

The day before Christmas in 1944, one of his friends came up to him. “Hannie,” he said excitedly, “Look what I have here, a cat!” Hannie followed him and behind the little house he saw that, indeed, his friend had caught a cat. They knew immediately where the cat came from. On the other side of the bamboo fence was the house of the Japanese camp commander and his concubine. The concubine’s cat must have sneaked out of the house, crawled through the slokan (gutter), and ducked underneath the fence, where  Hannie’s friend grabbed it.

Without thinking twice, Hannie wrung its neck and skinned it with the help of a piece of barbed wire. Hannie and his brother came up with a brilliant idea. Because of Christmas, all prisoners had received a double portion of rice. Everybody pitched in and the news spread like wildfire through the camp: the Blaauw brothers have made nasi goreng (fried rice)! What a very special Christmas dinner it was.

For days thereafter, they could hear the camp commander’s concubine call her cat – to no avail. Had they found out what happened to it, they would have killed the boys; the war would last another seven months. The cat never came back.

To be continued.

As always, I welcome your comments and if you have a story you want to see on my blog, please contact me.

Until next time,

Ronny

 

Hey! No new post this week? What is the matter? I can hear your thoughts. Here is my reason: I was gone for a week to visit my new little granddaughter in Canada. Well, little, that depends. She weighed 10 lbs. 11oz at birth, and had already grown to 12 lbs. 9oz a month later. So she had a good start in life, and I enjoyed being with her and her little – big – sister.

So hang in there, next Saturday you will find a new story right here on my blog.

Warm regards,

Ronny

Slave Labourer in Nagasaki – Conclusion

The camp was rife with rumors. Sometimes David Brandon managed to smuggle in a newspaper left behind by a Japanese worker, but one day he was called by the Japanese interpreter, an ex-hairdresser from Surabaya, and interrogated by the commander.

David denied everything and was beaten and threatened with a revolver at his temple. Back in camp, in front of the guard house, his arms were tied behind his back and then he was hoisted up a pole in such a way that he had to stand on his toes and hang from his arms. He stayed in that position until the next day. More beatings followed until a U.S. Air Force officer, who was a spokesman for the English, Dutch and American officers, appealed to the international Red Cross in Tokyo even though Japan had not signed the Geneva Convention for POWs. David was transferred to the camp hospital, where he stayed for two or three weeks. His arms were grotesquely swollen because of the hanging.

In March 1944 we were overjoyed to see the first B-29 bombers fly overhead. There were no signs on the roof of the camp buildings to tell them that we were POWs. Up there they were free, while down below we were prisoners. We were put to work building tunnels into the rocky hills for air raid shelters. The air raid sirens now sounded several times a day.

In July 1945 I was transported to a coal mine in a crowded train with tightly shut windows – a twelve-hour ordeal. Although the camp looked very bad from the outside, it was an improvement over our previous camp. The small rooms housing six men each, allowed more privacy. Here we could take a bath every day, and we were given more food.

Working in the mines was very dangerous and there were many accidents. We did not see daylight till the weekends because we left each morning before sunrise and returned after sunset. We named the person in demand Crazywind. For such minor infractions as not having our buttons done up we were severely punished.

We sensed that freedom could not be far away. One evening we saw the red glow of a burning city. On August 15, 1945, we observed soldiers, strangely subdued, listening to their radio. Our POW officers were invited into the main office, where they were offered chairs. Then they heard that the Emperor had surrendered.

Gradually our officers took command. We were finally given the Red Cross parcels held back by the guards. Planes parachuted in many barrels of food. We shared our bounty with the Japanese and made excursions outside the camp. The people outside the camp looked very poor, because they had also suffered. Three of us had our picture taken and paid for it with a blanket.

On September 18, we were taken out of the camp. We took the train back to Nagasaki, but now every window was open, we yelled at the farmers in the fields. But we quieted down when we noticed the destruction all around us. All we could see were deserted streets and remnants of some concrete buildings. Everything else had burned down. The town was no more. The smell of burning hung in the air, and the shadows of the dead were everywhere. We only heard the clicking of the train going through this mass grave.

At the main station the American Red Cross was waiting for us. We were treated like kings; nice women served us tea and coffee. We were taken to a bath-house to clean ourselves and to be deloused and disinfected. All our possessions were burned, except for a few souvenirs which were also disinfected. I was flown to Okinawa and from there sent to Manila, where we were housed in a big tent to recuperate from our ordeal at the hand of the Japanese.

It is tragic that it took the total destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the Emperor to end the war that he had started. As for myself, I was left with the sobering thought that if I had not been sent to the mines, I would have perished by those very bombs that brought freedom to so many.

Excerpt by John Franken. Published earlier in Four Years till Tomorrow

As always: I welcome your comments.

Until next time,

Ronny

 

 

Slave Labourer in Nagasaki – Part Five

I chose to be a cleaner. I had to sift through large piles of dirt that had been collected from the ship being built and remove all the nuts, bolts and other metal objects. These were cleaned and reused. It was a very cold job and my fingers became badly swollen. To combat the unbearable noise I put little pieces of wet newspaper in my ears. There was little supervision as we worked directly under the wharf foreman and the guard was far away.

It was a very dirty, unpleasant job. In the darkness under the ship there were many puddles so that my feet were always wet. One day while we were resting, we made a small fire to warm ourselves. When a guard spotted us he was beside himself with rage. As punishment we had to be in a push-up position for twenty minutes. If we sagged we were hit with the butt of a gun. My stomach muscles hurt for weeks afterwards.

Our lunch came in two sardine cans – one with seaweed, the other with rice. There was no place to heat our food, and it had to be guarded carefully or it would be stolen. We were starved when we returned to camp after each day’s work. If we were sick and could not work we only received half a ration of food.

Then I got a break. They needed electrical welders, and since I had learned the trade at technical school, I volunteered. The foreman was very pleased with a sample of my work and the next day I was given my welding outfit: a canvas jacket and trousers, plus a welding cap. Now I could sabotage by so-called cold welding; it looked good on the outside but was not melted on the inside. After a while I was promoted to welding the big masts of the ships. I learned to do a better job. The weather got still colder and I was glad I had my canvas outfit.

Then things again took a turn for the worse. While hammering slack coal I got a sliver in my eye, resulting in a serious infection. I was transferred to the blacksmith shop, where I helped an elderly Japanese. Under his guidance I made a steel-rod rack which was placed inside the chimney to heat up the lunches for the boys working outside. This was greatly appreciated.

Safety precautions were not taken. Many times when working with the steel masses I was in near-accidents which could have left me dead or severely maimed. On both sides of the dock were ten concrete floors to supply the ships below with the steel components. While we were being counted on the side of the dock, one Japanese worker fell from the tenth floor. His brain was splattered on the pavement below. The guards laughed loudly when this happened. Till this day I don’t understand their kind of humor.

There was also an incident among the Japanese workers who had to hammer big steel plates which came out of the furnace. One of these workers found a kitten, which everyone stroked. Then for some unknown reason, the worker threw the kitten onto the red hot plate. Its shrieks were bone-chilling; in no time it had burned into a small heap of ashes. Everyone laughed as if it was a big joke.

That winter was the first time I saw snow. I was shivering all the time and my hands and feet were always cold. I imagined getting hold of empty cement bags and cutting openings for my arms and head to keep the wind out. On the weekends we had a very hot bath in a community bath house. When everybody stood naked we could see how skinny we were. It was a sorry sight indeed, with ribs and bones showing, and the bites of bedbugs and lice covering our bodies.

On Christmas 1942 we were each given an apple. We were very happy with this small token. A soldier, Stevens, in room 18 obtained a violin from the Japanese to play on special occasions and weekends. He was a master. For the New Year we received our first winter outfit of the same quality as that of the soldiers.

Then I came down with dysentery. My elderly boss hid me under the drive belt of the main power supply and brought me soft rice. I lost a lot of weight. From Dr. Nieuwenhuis I received some opium drops to stop the diarrhea. I was very luck y to pull through because many died of this disease. There were many trips to the crematorium.

The hunger continued to get worse and we talked about food all the time. Our feet started to swell due to lack of vitamin B. At the sawmill where I worked there was a machine that separated the rice from the chaff. I managed to get a couple of cups of chaff every day, which I ate after having cooked it with some water over the smith’s fire. Slowly my feet returned to normal.

We were happy when the day ended without any mishaps or beatings. I talked a lot with my friends, especially David Brandon, who was more educated in the Jewish religion. On the weekends we had a cabaret but took pains to prevent the Japanese from discovering it. If a guard was coming we called Rood voor! (Red is coming!) These highlights on the weekend kept us going, giving us a laugh now and then. We lived day by day and hoped that one day there would be an end to this nightmare.

Excerpt by John Franken. Published earlier in Four Years till Tomorrow

To be continued.

As always: I welcome your comments right here on this page.

Until next time,

Ronny

 

 

Slave Labourer in Nagasaki – Part Four

As the rumours increased about an American landing on the other side of the island, three of my roommates escaped. The following morning at counting time it was discovered that they were missing. The whole camp was called together; the camp commander was furious. Immediately ten hostages were taken from the corner where the escapees normally slept. The Japanese commander let it be known that they would be killed if the escapees were not returned within three days, and that he would continue taking hostages till the men were back. This measure was meant as a deterrent for other would-be escapees. One of the hostages, my friend Plasse, was asked what he would like as his last meal. He asked for egg shells. When the guard did not understand and asked Plasse why he wanted egg shells he answered, “I need all the calcium for my bones when I am dead.”

After three days the escapees were back in camp. The natives had told the Japanese search party where to find them. The three men, still in their green army uniforms and their puttees around their legs, were severely beaten. The Japanese camp commander pronounced the death sentence. To show that he was not entirely without feelings, he released the ten hostages. They were quite shaken by their ordeal, which would scar their minds forever. We were issued a warning that if there ever would be another escape, these ten men would be executed. On the day the three escapees were executed, they were taken to an open field outside the camp. They had to dig their own graves, kneel in front of them, and then were beheaded.

I was stationed to work in a brothel. It was housed in a school in which the classrooms had been converted into smaller rooms. I saw many trucks with native girls between fourteen and seventeen years old, and some even younger. They were transported to the hospital for a check-up prior to sexual contact and rape by the Japanese officers and soldiers. We were not allowed to talk to the girls. The most beautiful of them were kept in a different part of the school for the officers. At the entrance of the yard was a soldier who would punch holes in ID cards which entitled the soldiers to have intercourse with the girls.

As soon as five or six soldiers had passed, my friend and I were called in to remove the towel stretched across the room and install a new one. Some of the girls accepted it and were just like zombies. Others would scream Tulung! Tulung! (help). I felt very uncomfortable and sorry for them.

One time we played a big joke on the Japanese cook. Every morning a small bag full of bananas was delivered to the camp and put under a tree near the guard house, to be picked up by the cook for the Japanese soldiers’ lunch. There was a bench under this tree where we could sit. One day we took turns sitting on the bench and while we sat there we each took out a few bananas and replaced them with twigs and small pieces of wood so that the bag remained the same size. After the bag was emptied of bananas, we watched to see what would happen. When the cook came to pick up the bag, he almost flipped over because he had expected the bag to be heavy with bananas. The Kurrah’s were heard a mile away! But luckily he gave up and walked away, and we realized what a dangerous game we had played!

Life in Japan

On October 14, 1942, along with other POWs, I sailed out of the harbour of Macassar for Japan on the Asamah Maruh. We were below deck with some cows. It was terribly hot and dark and the smell of urine and sickness permeated the hold. The portholes remained closed throughout the voyage. Many became seasick and had other ailments, and there was no opportunity to go anywhere to relieve ourselves. We did it where we were since we were allowed to go on deck only once a day. After ten days I was ready to give up.

When we arrived in the harbour of Manila we saw the carnage the Japanese had inflicted on the American fleet. The warships were lying on the bottom of the harbour with their smokestacks sticking out. I said a prayer for those who had drowned in their ships.

But this was not our destination. Some food and water were brought on board. We refueled and then in the dead of night we headed north. Due to the cold temperature and lack of warm clothing, many caught pneumonia. Late in the afternoon of October 23^rd we arrived in Nagasaki. The harbour looked beautiful with the hills in the background against a blue sky.

After we landed we were counted again and again, and then had to march to the infamous Fukuoka Two, a wooden camp with a guardhouse and a barbed wire fence around it. The compound was adjacent to the giant shipbuilding wharf. The barracks were in a U-form with eighteen rooms on each side with the washrooms and the kitchen in the connecting part. Each room housed fifty-two POWs. There was a row of thirteen bunk beds on each side. We kept our belongings under the bunk beds, behind sliding doors. Narrow tables and benches stretched through the center of the room to a large window in the end wall. Room 14 was my room for the next few years and my number 620 was printed on all my clothing.

Many died of pneumonia and dysentery shortly after we arrived in this camp. On November 19, 1942, we had to report for work. There was much yelling and speeches were held warning us to work hard, or risk punishment if caught loafing or committing other infractions.

Excerpt by John Franken. Published earlier in Four Years till Tomorrow

To be continued.

As always: I welcome your comments right here on this page.

Until next time,

Ronny