Indonesia and the Prisoner of War Camps In Indonesia, these were wonderful days. The islands were beautiful, the sunsets were gorgeous, and they had maids and servants. They loved it, it was a great life with dances and lots of friends. I was born there in 1942. All was well for about a year-and-a-half. The war had already broken out in Europe. The Germans were occupying the Netherlands, Rotterdam was bombed. My grandfather lost his business, and no one died in either family. My father and mother, however, were taken prisoner in Indonesia for three-and-ahalf years. They were in separate prison camps occupied by the Japanese. They didn’t know if each other was alive during this period. My mother had a number of illnesses in the camps. We got very little food, just one little scoop of rice each day. The prisoners lived and slept in big rooms with a lot of people. It was a hard time for both of them, and luckily I don’t remember much about it, just what I was told later. I was too young. One of the things I remember is my mother’s friend in the camp, Tontasit. She had a little boy. The two women made a pact that they would take care of each other. In the camp they had to dig graves and work in the fields, and they would watch each other’s child while the other went to work. We actually moved camps many times. We would be taken from camp to camp to camp, so life never felt settled even for a little girl like me. My father worked on the bridge of the River Kwai. He was very sick, too, and finally one of the doctor’s chose him to go to the hospital to get well. He also worked in the coal mines, the railroads, the jungle. Luckily, they were very young while prisoners of war, 20 and 21 years old. Some of the older people had a much harder time as they did not have the same perseverance to survive.
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