HerStoriaMagazineIssue9_japs.pdf Mar. 2014 | Page 3

a few extra handfuls in a tin using the tar as cooking fuel.
In the last six months in the camp we worked
in the kitchens. This was a privileged position and
perhaps, looking back, it was the difference between
life and death. We had thin tapioca for breakfast, rice
and watery sayor (green vegetable mix) for lunch,
and sometimes a piece of swede in the evening.
People were dying every day from malnourishment
and dysentery. Our periods stopped which had its
upside as we no longer had to bother washing out
the cotton towels that we used to absorb the flow.
We caught snails outside the camp and it was our job in
the kitchen to prepare them. When they boiled they turned
into a grey viscous substance and when we added some
vegetable stock the mixture turned a foul shade of green.
We gave this to the women in the sick bay in the hope it
would build them up. On average there were three or four
deaths per day. On a bad day that could go up to seven.
We had no news of the outside world and the way the
war was progressing so it was a shock to us when we heard
that in August 1945 the Japanese had capitulated. When
our Japanese sentries disappeared our first thoughts were
of escape. But where could we go? Our former home was
miles away and leaving the camp was dangerous because
of the hatred of the local people towards the Dutch.
The Indonesians started attacking the camps. The
British allies and the Ghurkas had arrived by then and

Mr and Mrs Kiesling in Java before the War.

kids would watch us from behind another outer
fence. Every so often we had a chance to trade
with them. We would give them a piece of textile
we had managed to salvage from our former lives
in exchange for an egg. We smuggled it back into
camp inside the leg of our baggy knickers. Every
time we entered the camp we had to bow three
times in deference to the Japanese sentry. We
were never discovered. Some women were caught
and got punished for similar misdemeanours.
Women would be punished at roll call or Tenko.
They had their hands tied behind their backs and
their arms suspended from a purpose-built beam,
lifted up high enough so that their toes just touched
the ground. The Japanese guards would scream at
them, administering the occasional whiplash. They
were left like that for hours in the blistering sun.
Sometimes in the evening, to stave off hunger
pangs, we would get together in our barrack and
fantasise about food. Writing down our favourite
recipes on little scraps of paper and exchanging
them. Sleep was a good way of avoiding hunger
but that was difficult because of the bedbugs. The
Japanese gave us a thick tarry substance which
was supposed to repel them. My mother saved that
though and with a few bits of rice my sister and I
managed to smuggle from the kitchen we cooked

18

HerStoria magazine Summer 2011

Transport van 17 March 1944, West Java. Pen drawing by woman in camp.
Image: Image Bank WW2 – NIOD-C.W.C.A. Augustijn.
www.geheugenvannederland.nl

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