Eight Prison Camps: A Dutch Family in Japanese Java (Volume 98)

Ohio RIS Southeast Asia Series #98

by Dieuwke Wendelaar Bonga

Eldest daughter of eight children, the author grew up in Surakarta, Java, in what is now Indonesia. In the months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, however, Dutch nationals were rounded up by Japanese soldiers and put in internment camps. Her father and brother were sent to separate men’s camps, leaving the author, her mother, and the five younger children in the women’s camp. In this and later seven other prison camps in central Java, their lives gradually deteriorated from early days of fear and crowding to near starvation, forced labor, beatings, and seeing others disappear or die. On the family’s return to Holland after the war, they found a nation recovering from German occupation and largely ignorant of the horror of the Far East experience.

Genres: History

219 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 1996

Reviews

[Mkotch · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author says she wrote the book because the story of the Dutch imprisoned by the Japanese during WW II has not been told. Well, it has, by numerous people. My favorite so far has been "The Flamboya Tree." Nonetheless, this is a gripping story, well told.

[Joe Hachey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm biased, as Dieuwke Wendelaar Bonga is my mother-in-law, but the book truly is the extraordinary story of ordinary people caught up in a terrible time and place. It's a terrific read, even if you don't have a particularly strong interest in World War II or southeast Asia.

[Fleur Dick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books like this are so important. My grandfather was in Changi and my grandmother and uncles in Ambarawa during WWII. Like so many, they didn’t really speak about what happened to them and they are all no longer with us which makes the stories told by others crucial for me to really understand the trauma that my family went through.

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although she is continuously optimistic, this is probably a pretty reliable report of what life was like for the many Dutch (and other nationalities) prisoners in Japanese prison camps during WWII in Indonesia. Since my mother was a prisoner herself, I was very interested to read this book; it gave me an idea of what my mother's experiences might have been like. She never talked about it.