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From Chapter III: Banished! From Tjimahi to Bandung
Many thanks for sending me the layout of the POW camp 15th Batallion Bandung (at that time we also called this camp Tjikoedapateu) and for the detailed information on the transmigration in and out of this camp of POWs. These documents must have been worked out by professionals because of their precision. I still have some memories which are in line with these documents. I also detected the barracks where I bivouacked. This, of course, called back some of the events I experienced when I was imprisoned in this camp more than half a century ago. At that time I was not yet seventeen years of age.
This 15th Batallion Bandung camp was basically a camp for adult non-military males. I was transported to this camp around half-a-year before the two atomic bombs were dropped at Nagasaki and Hiroshima in early August 1945, ending WW II abruptly. (I plan to come back on this terrible happening in one of my future letters).
Now about my transport as POW from Tjimahi to Bandung. This was considered a punitive transport because the selected group to be transported by train were all young boys around my age who for one reason or other were booked in the records of the Tjimahi camp management as troublesome individuals.
Though Tjimahi was a suburb of Bandung it took us more than nine hours to reach our destination. Before sunrise we were already in the train with blinded windows and it was only after the sun set that we arrived at our destination. The train moved forwards and backwards all the time so that we were completely confused at the end of our trip and we really did not know where we were. Great was our surprise when our Indonesian truck drivers told us that we were in Bandung. Actually we thought we had been taken to one of the far corners of Java. I never have understood this Japanese philosophy of transporting their prisoners. Later and after the war we learned that this back and forth movement was their usual practice--perhaps to create confusion and uncertainty, but I ask myself, for what?
Now, I will take a detour from my subject. How had I joined this category of young adult lads? Tjimahi is the setting. I was assigned to a rather hard working corvée, moving big stones from one place up and down a road to a livestock farm in a hilly area. This we had to do in carriages with one of us in front for steering and drawing, and three of us at the rear pushing the carts up and guiding them down the hills. At lunchtime we were rewarded by an extra meal consisting of fodder for the animals, mostly pigs. It was a kind of half boiled corn, which may be very healthy for pigs and for those of us with strong stomachs but for me with my very sensitive digestive organs it became a nightmare. The Indonesian translation of the illness I developed means 'leakage'. I could not get rid of this leakage, and thus suffered terrible weakness and loss of weight. I remember my weight at its lowest went down to 38 kg, whereas I already weighed 55 kg at my maximum.
Believe it or not, according to Japanese philosophy related to POWs, if one's body temperature is still below 380C, one is not sick. In my case, I had no fever but one day felt too weak for work pushing carriages with heavy stones up and down the hill the whole day long. I therefore decided that morning to continue my rest on my sleeping mat and not to report for the usual morning roll-call.
It did not take long before one of the Dutch camp supervisors appeared in my bivouac asking the reason for my failure to report. I explained my situation and noticed some resistance on his part that made me furious. I told him in clear Dutch language that I would not mind to be shot dead by the Japanese. Working in my current state of health would have the same deadly effect, anyway. I told him clearly that I was not going to work and I asked to see the camp physician. My Dutch supervisor did not say a word and left my place. The physician never came and I thought that this would be the end of the story. But it was not.
One day, a few weeks later, the Dutch supervisory team was ordered by the Japanese management of the Tjimahi camp to send a hundred boys from the camp to be transported somewhere else. It was up to the Dutch team to select those of us who they would like to get rid of. This was to be regarded as a punitive transport and that should be made well known to the prisoners. In view of my former debate on my 'leakage' and unpreparedness to work any further, I of course was selected to be sent away with the 'bad boys'. We were told to report to the main gate at 5 o'clock the next morning. Really, this command meant nothing to me. My room-mates told me I was looking yellow and also my eyes were more than yellowish. I felt miserable. The message that I was on the punitive transport list did not influence my sleep and mood at all. I was 'hin' as the Germans say, perhaps 'out of it,' says it in English; nothing could bother me any more.
Back to the red thread of my letters. Early in the morning I was on the train to Bandung. In Bandung I got the surprise of my life. Arriving late in the afternoon and more dead than alive, I landed in one of the barracks of the POW adult camp 15th Batallion in Bandung. The men were shocked to see me. All stretched their hands, figuratively speaking, to help me out of my sick situation. They called the physician; they even arranged for a mattress for me -- an exceptional item in a POW camp. They gave me part of their portion of food; in short, they treated me as the 'Benjamin' of the barrack. I revived quickly and soon came the day that the physician advised me to start working again, so I would reach another world of thoughts and values. He was right.
I often have wondered, and still do, whether the Dutch supervisors at Tjimahi engineered my transfer to Bandung to save me, knowing my life would be worth nothing if I remained in Tjimahi. Who knows?
In the Japanese time somehow or other every prisoner of war belonged to a 'kongsi;' these informal groupings were usually spontaneous, more or less the result of circumstance. My kongsi comrades, a pilot of Royal Dutch Aviation Corporation (KNILM), a jail director, a teacher with his brother and someone you know, my friend Dik Loke: these were all extremely sympathetic guys but ... they were also quite well known for their talents in the art of smuggling.
They agreed with the physician that I needed some change of environment and urged me to join them in their work. By now you can deduce yourselves which of their works I got to join them in!
Now I need a strong nightcap to put the unpleasant dreams to sleep.
From: Traces - Memoirs of an Indonesian Wartime Boyhood by Pieter Roeloffs
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