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HIS KIDS are SENT to INTERNMENT CAMP
INTERNMENT of WOMEN & CHILDREN by the JAPANESE OCCUPATION in JAVA
My mother, Johanna Oomens (Bos) has told me several times of stories told to her by my dad (Roy Bos) and his family. These stories include the forced internment of my grandmother, my dad, aunt, and uncle. This likely occurred after the imprisonment and execution of my grandfather, Karel H. G. Bos, however, there may have been some overlap. (My grandparents were already divorced by this time.) My father never spoke to me of these traumatic times.
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However, my aunt, Olga (Boordie-Ripassa) van Laar, thought she remembered hearing that it was a "buitenkamp" ("outside camp.") "Outside camps", from what I understand, were similar to the internment camps.
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I am listing information on BOTH, until one can be confirmed.
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This is what I was able to find so far. (ChatGPT accessed December 2025):​​​
BUITENNKAMPS (OUTSIDE CAMPS)
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(Per Google Gemini AI accessed December 2025 & January 2026:)
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"Buitenkampers" (Dutch for "outside campers") refers to Dutch-Indonesians (Eurasians) who avoided internment in Japanese concentration camps during WWII in Indonesia but faced severe hardship and discrimination in designated "protected areas," contrasting with "binnenkampers" (in-campers) who were imprisoned; their story is documented in films like "Buitenkampers," highlighting their traumatic experiences and unique place in history.
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Who Were the Buitenkampers?
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Definition: Dutch nationals of mixed Indonesian and European descent (Eurasians or "Indos") who lived outside the main Japanese POW/internment camps but under strict curfews and controls.
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Context: The Japanese occupation (1942-1945) divided the European population; full-blooded Europeans (Totoks) went to camps, while many Indos, due to their perceived closer ties to native populations, were left in controlled neighborhoods, known as Buitenkampen.
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Hardship: Despite being outside the camps, they faced shortages, forced labor, violence, and uncertainty, often becoming targets for both Japanese forces and sometimes Indonesian nationalists during the post-war Bersiap period.
Key Aspects of Their Experience
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Identity: Their mixed heritage made them distinct, and they often felt loyalty to the Netherlands but were treated differently from "pure" Dutch.
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Documentary Focus: The film Buitenkampers (2014) by Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich shares the stories of these individuals, particularly focusing on the childhood experiences of trauma and survival.
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"Untold Story": Their experiences, especially during the turbulent post-war years (the Bersiap), were often silenced within families but form a crucial, often overlooked, part of Dutch-Indonesian history.
In Summary
The term Buitenkampers highlights a specific, often painful, chapter for Eurasians in Indonesia, caught between colonial powers and emerging nationalism, enduring severe hardships outside the well-known internment camps, a story brought to light through personal accounts and documentaries.
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INTERNMENT CAMPS OF WOMEN & CHILDREN
(Per ChatGPT accessed December 2025 & January 2026:) During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (1942–1945) in World War II, thousands of civilians — especially Dutch and Indo-European women and children — were forcibly interned in a network of camps across Java and other islands. While many records and narratives focus on camps in Batavia (Jakarta) and Central and West Java, there were several internment situations specifically involving women and children from East Java as well.
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Context: Japanese Civilian Internment Policy in Java
After Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in early 1942, they rounded up large numbers of European and Indo-European civilians as enemy nationals. These internees were separated by age and gender:
• Women and children (initially including boys up to age 17–18, later only boys under age 10) were held in women’s and children’s camps.
• Men and older boys were held in separate men’s camps.
By 1943–1944, internees from all over Java — including from East Java — were consolidated in larger camps in Central Java (e.g., Semarang, Ambarawa) and around Batavia, rather than being kept in smaller local camps.
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Internment of Women and Children from East Java
While many names of camps are associated with West and Central Java, several locations in East Java were significant as internment sites for women and children before transfers elsewhere:
1. Darmo Quarter — Surabaya (East Java)
• Largest women’s camp in East Java.
• In Surabaya, families were forced to move into the Darmo quarter, where about 6 600 women and children were interned.
• Groups were gradually transported to other camps in Central Java (Ambarawa, Muntilan, Semarang) and West Java as the Japanese concentrated internees. 
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2. De Wijk — Malang (East Java)
• A major women and children internment location in the Bergenbuurt (Mountain quarter) of Malang.
• Between November 1942 and January 1943, roughly 7 000 women and children, mostly Dutch and Indo-European, were held there.
• Many internees from De Wijk were later moved to camps in Central Java (Surakarta, Banjubiru, Semarang) as relocations continued through 1943–44.
Personal Accounts
• Some internees recalled how entire families were forced to move into cramped rooms under barbed wire, with disease outbreaks (e.g., diphtheria) and very poor conditions — followed by long rail journeys to camps deeper in Java (e.g., Ambarawa).
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3. Smaller East Java Camps Near Kediri
A few smaller internment locations held women and children from both East Java and surrounding regions:
• Galuhan (south of Kediri): ~350 internees
• Kawarasan I & II (east of Kediri): ~370 internees total
• Kediri prison: women and children also held here before transfer
• In October 1943, many from these locations were transferred to the Banjubiru camp in Central Java.
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Movement and Concentration of Internees
By mid-1944 onward, Japanese authorities sought to reduce the number of small local camps and concentrate women and children in fewer, larger camps, often far from their original homes:
• Hundreds transferred to Semarang, Ambarawa, and Banjubiru (Central Java).
• Others eventually ended up in camps around Batavia (West Java).
• This consolidation was part of a broader tightening of camp administration, with civilian camps coming under military POW status by April 1944.
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Life in Women’s and Children’s Camps
Conditions in these camps were extremely harsh:
• Internees lived in overcrowded quarters with minimal sanitation and food.
• Disease outbreaks were common.
• Many women and older girls struggled with the psychological strain of confinement and disruption of family and community life.
Some erstwhile civilian internees were even selected for forced labor or sexual exploitation (e.g., being sent to comfort stations) — a tragic side of the occupation documented in some camp histories, particularly in Central Java areas like Ambarawa and Semarang.
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Important Notes
• Most formal historical records group final internment locations by province rather than by original home region, because internees were often moved long distances.
• Many camp records were destroyed at war’s end, so detailed rosters from specific East Java camps are fragmentary.
FORCED ENCAMPMENT of the CHILDREN of KAREL BOS
(Per ChatGPT & Google Gemini AI accessed December 2025 & January 2026:) Here’s what can be verified from available historical and family records regarding Elvira (Elvire) Wilhelmina Bonk Bos and whether she was held in a Japanese internment camp during World War II:
Was she and her children interned?
There is strong contextual evidence that many Dutch/Indo-European families in Malang were interned by the Japanese during WWII—including women and children in camps such as “De Wijk” in Malang:
• After the Japanese occupation, almost all Dutch women and children in places like Malang were forced into internment areas or camps (for example, the De Wijk camp in Malang), before many were later transferred to larger provincial camps. 
• A first-hand account from Malang describes Mrs. Bos among a group of women and children held in such an internment situation prior to being moved by train to a camp in Java (e.g., Ambarawa in Central Java). The account references “Mrs. Bos and her children” as part of a group interned with several other families.
This indicates that Elvire (Bonk) Bos was likely interned with her children in Malang (almost certainly in De Wijk or a similar women/children camp), and subsequently transported to a larger camp such as Ambarawa. Family-level-specific historical records are rare, but the personal narrative explicitly naming “Mrs. Bos and her children” supports this.
Important Notes
• Japanese internment records for Dutch civilians are incomplete or fragmented, and many original rosters did not survive the war. Because of that, exact camp assignment (e.g., De Wijk vs. an assembly camp) isn’t always known for specific families.
• Many civilian women and children were first assembled locally (in places like the Malang quarter) and then consolidated into larger camps elsewhere in Java (e.g., Ambarawa, Semarang) as internment policy evolved. 
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Summary
Elvira (Elvire) Wilhelmina Bonk Bos and her children were almost certainly interned by the Japanese during WWII, with strong personal testimony placing Mrs. Bos among women and children interned in Malang and later moved by train to a larger camp.
The exact camp name and full official record are not readily available in surviving public databases, but contextual and eyewitness evidence strongly supports that she and her children experienced internment.
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Why records can be hard to find
• Many official Japanese records about internment in the Indies were lost or never recovered, so surviving lists of names are fragmentary.
• Existing sources rely heavily on post-war testimony, diaries, and interviews, not comprehensive official registers.
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WERE THE CHILDREN OF KAREL H. G. BOS HELD IN A "BUITENKAMP" OR AN INTERNMENT CAMP?
The distinction does matter historically.
Short answer
Elvira Wilhelmina Bonk (ex-wife of Karel Bos) and the children were almost certainly held in a formal internment camp, not a buitenkamp.
Specifically, they fit the pattern of women-and-children civilian internment in Malang (De Wijk), followed by transfer to a larger camp in Central Java.
A buitenkamp (outside-camp living under restrictions) is very unlikely in their case.
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Why this matters: camp vs. buitenkamp
During the Japanese occupation:
• Buitenkamp
• Mostly applied to:
• Indonesians
• Some Indo-Europeans with Indonesian status
• Widows or women married to Indonesians who could prove Indonesian nationality
• People lived outside camps but under surveillance, curfews, rationing, and forced moves.
• Civilian internment camps
• Applied to:
• Dutch nationals
• Most Indo-European women with European legal status
• Women whose husbands were enemy nationals or POWs
• Included women-and-children camps such as De Wijk (Malang), Darmo (Surabaya), Ambarawa, Banjubiru, etc.
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Applying this to Elvira Bonk Bos and the children
1. Legal and social status
• Elvira Bonk was European (Dutch) by law.
• Her children (Joan, Roy, Ludolph, etc.) were:
• Born in Malang
• Children of a Dutch father (Karel Bos)
• Registered as European / Dutch subjects
That status alone made them eligible for internment, not buitenkamp residence.
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2. Timing and location (Malang, late 1942–1943)
• Malang is crucial here.
• By late 1942, the Japanese:
• Had already ordered nearly all Dutch women and children in Malang into the De Wijk women’s camp
• This was not an optional assembly area — it was barbed-wire internment
• De Wijk held ~7,000 women and children, overwhelmingly Dutch and Indo-European.
If Elvira and the children were in Malang at that time (which they were), they would have been swept into this action.
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3. Her remarriage does not make her a buitenkamper
You raised an important nuance earlier: Elvira remarried in January 1942.
However:
• Remarriage did not automatically exempt a woman from internment
• Exemption required:
• Indonesian nationality of the husband and
• Formal recognition by Japanese authorities
In practice:
• Many European women married to Indonesians were still interned, especially if:
• They had European children
• Their former husband was a POW
• Malang authorities were strict, especially in 1942–43
So remarriage does not move her into the buitenkamp category.
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4. Eyewitness evidence
A contemporary memoir explicitly refers to:
“Mrs Bos and her children”
being confined with other women and children in Malang
and later transported by train to a camp in Central Java.
That language — confinement, transport, group movement — is internment language, not buitenkamp life.
Buitenkampers:
• Were not moved in mass rail transports
• Were not held behind wire
• Were not grouped with thousands of women and children
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Most likely sequence (based on all evidence)
1. 1942 (Malang)
→ Elvira and children interned in De Wijk women’s camp
2. 1943
→ Transferred by train to a larger Central Java camp
(Ambarawa, Banjubiru, or a related women’s camp)
3. 1944–1945
→ Remained under full civilian internment until liberation
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Bottom line
They were almost certainly internees, not buitenkamp residents.
Everything aligns with:
• Their legal status
• Malang’s internment policy
• The timing
• Eyewitness testimony
• Known Japanese consolidation of women-and-children camps
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we can narrow this down with a fairly high degree of confidence.
Below is a reasoned reconstruction, using Malang transfer patterns, dates, camp capacity, and who was sent where.
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Executive conclusion (short version)
The most likely Central Java camp for Elvira Bonk Bos and her children is:
Ambarawa (women & children camp complex)
Secondary possibility: Banjubiru
Very unlikely: Semarang city camps or Surakarta
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Step-by-step reasoning
1. Starting point is firm: De Wijk, Malang
• De Wijk (Malang) was a temporary concentration camp, not meant for long-term holding.
• From late 1942 through 1943, women and children from Malang were systematically emptied out and sent north to Central Java.
• Transfers were done by train in large groups — exactly as described in the memoir mentioning “Mrs Bos and her children.”
So we are looking for a camp that routinely received Malang transports.
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2. Where did Malang women & children usually go?
Based on surviving camp transfer records and post-war reconstructions, Malang women and children were sent primarily to three places:
INTERNMENT CAMPS in JAVA
​During World War II, approximately 100,000 Dutch civilians were interned in the former Dutch East Indies between March 1942 and August 1945. Men were separated from women and children. From 1944 onward, boys over the age of 10 were housed in men's camps or in separate boys' camps.
DE WIJK / BERGENBUURT INTERNMENT CAMP
From the information found, it was reported that the three children of Karel Bos, along with his ex-wife, were first held at DE WIJK Internment Camp, in Malang, East Java. (De Wijk was also known as BERGENBUURT.) It is estimated that they were taken and forced into camp somewhere in the last 6 months of 1943.
The following is per Google Gemini AI accessed December 2025:
CONDITIONS OF DE WIJK / BERGENBUURT INTERNMENT CAMP
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Conditions in the Bergenbuurt (also known as De Wijk) internment camp in Malang were characterized by extreme overcrowding, malnutrition, and a lack of medical resources.
Key conditions included:
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Overcrowding: The camp was a residential neighborhood originally intended for Dutch and Indo-European families. As the war progressed, the Japanese military consolidated more internees into the area, forcing multiple families to share single houses and eventually limiting living space to mere inches per person.
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Malnutrition: Food rations were severely limited and often consisted of small portions of rice or a "black bread" made from tapioca flour mixed with sawdust. This led to widespread deficiency diseases such as beri-beri and hunger edema.
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Disease: Rampant illnesses included dysentery, malaria, and dengue fever, exacerbated by the lack of mosquito nets and poor sanitation.
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Medical Scarcity: Hospitals were perpetually overcrowded and lacked basic supplies like bandages, medicine, and sanitary needles. Many internees died from preventable conditions because Japanese authorities hoarded Red Cross supplies.
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Forced Labor and Discipline: Internees, including women and children, were forced to perform manual labor, such as gardening, cleaning sewers, and kitchen work. Daily life involved mandatory roll calls (kumpulans) where prisoners often had to stand in the tropical sun for hours.
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Brutality: Punishment for minor rule infractions was severe, and there were reports of Japanese officers recruiting "comfort women" from among the younger internees.
By the end of the war, the mortality rate in such civilian camps was high, with approximately one in eight detainees dying from exhaustion or malnutrition.
FORCED JOBS of WOMEN & CHILDREN
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In the Bergenbuurt (De Wijk) and other similar Japanese internment camps in Indonesia, all females between the ages of approximately 11 and 60 were required to perform "useful work".
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Work Done by Women
Women were assigned grueling and often undignified tasks to keep the camp running or to serve Japanese interests:
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"Furniture Ladies": Teams of women were forced to clear furniture from houses and haul heavy items, including pianos and cupboards, on carts they pulled themselves.
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Kitchen and Fuel Duty: In the central kitchen (dapur), women chopped firewood, scrubbed massive oil barrels used as cooking pots, and prepared meager rations.
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Sanitation and Maintenance: Women were forced to scoop sewage from overflowing latrines and repair the camp’s bamboo fencing (gedek).
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Agriculture and Sewing: Many worked in vegetable gardens to supplement food supplies or sewed clothing for the Japanese military.
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Camp Support: Those with specific skills served as camp doctors, nurses, or teachers for the children, often working in overcrowded and resource-depleted hospitals.
Work and Daily Life for Children
Children were not exempt from the harsh environment, though their tasks varied by age:
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Manual Labor: Older children and teenagers helped in the gardens, yards, and kitchens alongside the women.
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Secret Education: Since formal education was strictly banned by the Japanese, children often attended "secret camp schools" where they were taught from memory by women using sticks to write in the dirt.
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Smuggling and Trade: Children sometimes assisted in the "gedek trade," where internees smuggled food or goods through holes in the camp perimeter.
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Youth Organizations: In some cases, they attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy by participating in activities like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, or playing sports when energy levels allowed.
PUNISHMENTS of WOMEN & CHILDREN
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In the Bergenbuurt (De Wijk) and other Japanese internment camps in Indonesia, women and children faced severe, often arbitrary punishments designed to dehumanize and enforce absolute obedience.
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Specific punishments included:
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Public Beatings: Infractions such as failing to bow properly to Japanese guards, being caught with "contraband" (like a piece of crochet work), or attempting to smuggle food were met with immediate and harsh physical violence.
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Forced Exposure (Tenko): During daily roll calls (tenko), internees—including children—were forced to stand at attention or in a deep bow for hours in the tropical sun. Those who fainted from exhaustion or heat were often beaten.
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Collective Starvation: If an individual committed an offense, such as escaping or stealing, the entire camp could be punished by having all food and water rations withheld for several days.
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Humiliation Tactics:
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Head Shaving: Women were frequently punished by having their heads shaved, a deeply humiliating act that they often tried to hide with scarves.
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Destruction of Food: In some instances, guards forced women to dig large holes and bury the entire camp's bread ration for the day, then dance on top of the "grave" while the guards watched.
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Sexual Violence: Younger women and teenage girls were at constant risk of sexual abuse. Some were forcibly taken to work in military brothels (comfort stations), while others were coerced into sexual acts in exchange for meager food rations for their families.
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Family Separation: As a form of psychological punishment and control, boys were forcibly removed from their mothers’ care as soon as they reached the age of 10 or 12 and sent to men's camps.
TENKO (ROLL-CALL)
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In Japanese internment camps like Bergenbuurt (De Wijk), Tenko (Japanese for "roll-call") was a twice-daily mandatory procedure that evolved into a primary method of physical and psychological punishment.
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The Tenko Procedure
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Forced Standing: Internees were forced to line up and stand at attention, often for hours in the blazing tropical sun.
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Mandatory Bowing: Prisoners had to perform a deep bow from the waist to their Japanese captors to show absolute submission.
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Counting in Japanese: Inmates were often required to count off or number themselves using Japanese numbers. Failure to do so correctly resulted in immediate physical abuse.
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Tenko as Punishment
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Extreme Exposure: If the Japanese guards were dissatisfied with the count or perceived a lack of respect, they would force the entire group—including children, the elderly, and the sick—to remain standing in the sun for an indefinite period.
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Physical Violence: Guards regularly patrolled the lines during Tenko. Any movement, talking, or failure to meet bowing standards could lead to severe beatings.
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Collective Retaliation: A single individual's mistake could result in collective punishment for the whole camp, such as withholding evening meals or forcing hundreds of women and children to stand in the cold or rain until midnight.
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Psychological Terror: The sound of the siren signaling Tenko was a source of extreme fear for children, as it signaled the start of a period where they had to remain perfectly still under the threat of violence.
In particularly brutal camps like Tjideng, commanders such as Captain Kenichi Sone used kumpulans (roll-calls) specifically as a tool for torture, forcing internees to stand until they collapsed from fatigue.
AMBARAWA INTERNMENT CAMP
From survivor and witness testimonies, we know that the children and their mom were later transferred from De Wijk Internment Camp to one of the larger camps of Ambarawa.
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While there were at least nine camps in Ambarawa. From the De Wijk transfer reports, we can see that on ​Aug. 5, 1944, 100 people (women, children, and old men) were transported to(one of the) AMBARAWA Internment Camps (possibly 8?), in Central Java.
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This was also a forced labor camp, where everyone, including the children, were made to work the farms as well as other duties.
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The following is per Google Gemini AI accessed December 2025:
Ambarawa, Indonesia, hosted significant Japanese internment camps during WWII (like Fort Willem I for Dutch civilians/POWs), but is most famous for the 1945 Battle of Ambarawa, where Indonesian forces fought Allied troops for control of the strategically vital town and its prisoner camps, ending in an Indonesian victory and Allied retreat.
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Key Aspects:
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Japanese Occupation (WWII): The Japanese converted existing Dutch military structures, like Fort Willem I, into internment camps for Allied POWs and civilian internees (mostly Dutch) in Central Java.
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Post-Independence Conflict: After Indonesia declared independence, Indonesian forces (TKR/TNI) took control of Ambarawa. Tensions with arriving Allied forces (British/Dutch) escalated into the Battle of Ambarawa in late 1945.
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The Battle: Indonesian forces, led by figures like Colonel Soedirman, successfully besieged and drove out Allied troops, securing the town and its prisoners, a crucial victory in the Indonesian National Revolution.
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Fort Willem I: This fort served as a prison/barracks before the war, became a major camp under the Japanese, and later housed Dutch internees during the revolution, becoming a symbol of the struggle.
In essence, Ambarawa was a crucial location marked by both colonial-era imprisonment and fierce post-colonial conflict for freedom.
Ambarawa in Central Java was a major site for Japanese WWII internment camps for Dutch civilians, with specific locations like Camp 1A (a former barracks holding thousands of women and children) and others (like Ambarawa 2, Camp 6) where families faced starvation, forced labor, and harsh conditions, including the infamous forced recruitment of young women as "comfort women" for brothels, a brutal experience detailed in memoirs like Eight Prison Camps by Jan van Oort.
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Key Details about Ambarawa Camps:
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Location: Ambarawa, Central Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).
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Inhabitants: Primarily Dutch civilians (women and children) after Japan occupied Java in 1942.
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Camp Conditions: Extremely harsh, marked by overcrowding, lack of food (leading to malnutrition, dysentery, beriberi), tropical diseases (malaria, boils), and forced labor.
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Specific Camps: Included Camp 1A (holding around 3,000 women/children) and later Ambarawa 2 (Camp 6), part of a series of camps documented in Dutch wartime literature.
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"Comfort Women": A notorious event occurred in Ambarawa where young women, including Jan O'Herne, were taken from Camp 1A to work in brothels in Semarang.
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Liberation: Families were eventually evacuated or liberated as the war ended, with some moving to other camps before returning to Holland.