Trying to survive.

Just got back from a beautiful Holiday to France and Holland. I promised that I would continue writing about our years in Japanese camp , and our return back to Holland.


It was a very sad day. The year was 1946. We had survived not only the Japanese camps but also the Bersiap. When we were liberated we had to be protected by the Japs (of all people) we had to stay in the Prison Camps because outside the camps it was too dangerous. We were free, but what was the meaning of that word?? Our freedom was only from the Japanese tyrant's. Freedom to us was something very unreal. Here in Indonesia we were in the midst of a new War. Many Europeans were in this period not safe. We had to stay in the Prison Camps, and ironically, the Japanese our former tyrants had to protect us from the Indonesian resistance.(The extremists) We were guarded by Netherlands ambonese, who only had steel rods,taken from beds, knives, and a few stolen riffles. It was a life threatening situation in Camp. Dutch troops arrived from Holland to fight the extremists. The combat outside the camps was fierce. Shootings and bombings everyday. The extremists were hiding outside the camps in the little Indonesian villages.Life in Camp was a little improved, since we no longer were Prisoners of War of the Japanese and we had a little more to eat. But now we were in danger again.We hated the Japanese and now they were our protectors. We were out of control, we spit at them when we passed them. We did no longer have to bow for them, oh what a good feeling was that, is what my mother told me.The Japanese tried to be friendly and sometimes touched my hair, because I was so blond. My mother told them to keep their stinking yellow hands of my daughters hair. You yellow beast. They could not understand her anyways.They knew that there former tyrants had to protect them from the dangers, but my mother said she could not help herself she hated them so much.
 Nobody in Holland had any idea that it was still so bad in Indonesia. One day the Japanese had fled , and the extremists entered the camp. They slaughtered every women and child. My mother only  told me once that she and I were hiding under a bamboo bed because the extremists were shooting at us.

My husband Ruud, me and my sister Sietske and my brother Leendert went to visit my mothers youngest sister Anneke in Kolhorn, when we were in Holland this year.My mother had told her sister that she and her sister were raped by these Japanese while in Moentilan in that horrible camp.She had promised never to talk about it.My mother and her sister felt such shame and dirty, and in those days you never talked about these things.
I was so shocked when I heard this. How come my mother never talked about this? Was this war trauma?? I am still trying to come to grips with this terrible knowledge.What an emotional day we had. I think we never cried so much. It was good for my aunt to get this off her chest.How sad for my mother and my aunt that they never were able to talk about this, they so desperately needed help.In Holland everybody was still so busy with them selves. Life continues and it is better to leave things behind and try to forget.But still what happened should never be forgotten. We have to make sure that our children never will never be in these situations, ever! It should never happen again! To live with hatred and resentment is so bad, specially for your health and your mind. All around in Holland, when we arrived from Indonesia,was talk about the German occupation. How they had suffered. They had no idea what their fellow countrymen had endured. How hard it was for them not being able to talk about what happened over there. Over there seemed like a long way from Holland. You were in Paradise, they said, compared to us.
 The hatred for the Japanese was always there with my mother.She hated everything what had to do with Japan. She passed away in 2003, she was never able to forget and was not able to leave that period of her life behind her.She was never able to forget her first husband Klaas.Although she had a very good life with her second husband.How my mother has spared me from all of this. I always asked questions, she always told me that Indonesia was Paradise on earth, which was true, she never lied about that. But she never told me how Paradise in Indonesia was changed into Hell by the Japanese occupancy.

Oh, how this beautiful country changed in the hands of the Japanese occupation.

My mother and I were finally able to leave this hell in 1946, but the fighting still continued five more long years after World War 2 had ended. Many young men lost their lives. The UN Security Council demands release of the Republican government, and independence for Indonesia.
 August 17 1950 Indonesia is fully independent.If only The Netherlands had agreed in the first place to give Indonesia their independence, this might not have happened.
300.000 Dutch, and 920000 Dutch Forces left Indonesia.Many had lost their lives. Why??

The soldiers were wondering: why had they been in this Hell!!!

I think Holland is still ashamed of these happenings, and has been trying to shovel this under the carpet.How come the Netherlands  never paid compensation for all the losses of their fellow countrymen? Their excuse was that The Dutch-Indies after their loss was bankrupt. Indonesia was a Dutch Colony for 300 years, it belonged to Holland and now all of a sudden we did not belong??A nice letter from the Queen Wilhelmina did not help the old-internees from Japanese Camps and all the young men who died.Shame on you! All other countries did. The Australians, the English, the Americans,what kind of excuse do you have Holland?

My husband Ruud and myself, my sister and Ruud's sister Carla, went to visit the Monuments in Arnhem in July 2010. Here some pictures. It was very emotional.

My fathers name K.van der Wal.

Very emotional!

In memory of the Dutch victims in Japanese women camps, the Dutch Indies..1941-1945

The infamous Japanese rail road tracks through the jungle of Thailand

My father was in Rin Tin and in Kinsayok, He died in Kuye where he was buried by his comrades and after the war his remains were transferred to Kanchanaburi, where he is resting in Peace, with his other fallen comrades.

When life through terror becomes your enemy, death arrives as a good friend.

Lest we forget!

Next story will be about my mother and I returning to Holland .Mom your story had to be told.You never were able to do it, so I do it for you. I love you!!
It pains me that you never have seen these monuments. Maybe it would have given you some peace.

I like to know if anybody knows these people?

I am inserting some pictures from my mother, from her time in Indonesia. I like to know if somebody out there would recognize somebody on these pictures.Have they survived the Japanese Camps?

Klaas van der Wal on the left, my mom Sietske on the right.

                                     

Sietske my mom third from the left, my father Klaas on the right.

                                                                            

Eke van Driel-Sijtsma and Elizabethvan Vaas-Thiel, Soerabaja.

                                        

My father Klaas van der Wal, second from the left. Who are the others? Did they survive the Japanese prison camps?

                                           

                                

My mother Sietske on the right in front of her house, Tjikoerailaan 7, Bandoeng. Who are the others? My mom was 5 months pregnant .

My father on the left, Klaas van der Wal. Who is the other man? This pic. is taken when they still were in Holland. This is Leeuwarden.

If anybody recognize somebody, please let me know. You can e-mail me: tetske@yahoo.ca
or leave a message on my blog.



                                     

Letters from Queen Wilhelmina,

While my mother and I were in the Java Care Center in Bandoeng she received a letter from  Queen Wilhelmina.
It is written in Dutch,

                                                                                                 The Haque, November 21` 1945

To the old-interned in Japanese Women Camp,

It is with great pleasure, after numerous tries, to have the ability to let you know that I have always thought about you.

All the time during these terrible years, which are now behind us, my thoughts, as well as those of thousands in occupied Holland and outside of here, always were thinking of you.

Every time my thoughts were with them who had to carry this heavy load. Occupied by these ruthless enemies. I know now, that my worries about you all were not injustice at all. Also I know that your courage and persevering in the midst of all this were unparalleled.

I am extremely proud for the example the women in Indonesia were for us. You have showed at the world how courageous you were and showed the world how big and proud you make your Country.

We commemorate with great sadness and admiration, those who offered their lives.

I thank you all for what you have done for our Kingdom.

signed by:                               Wilhelmina    Queen of The Netherlands


When my mother received this letter, she did not know , that her husband had not survived. She was checking all the lists which came in from the Red Cross.
Soon after this letter she received word that he had died in that terrible place, on the Burma Railroad track.
How sad that must have been for her, she had just barely made it herself. She had been so sick, they told her  that it was a miracle she had survived..
When she was in the Java Care Centre in Bandoeng she received a letter from a friend from my father, who was with him for three months, in Rintin in Thailand.He said in the letter that he was there with my father and the other Dutch from the Cavalry. He  also told my mother that he had a few possessions from my father, which he had promised Reverend J.C. Hamel, if he would survive he would make sure that my mother would get these. It was my fathers wedding ring, which he had hidden all the time and some photographs who hardly were recognizable, and my fathers wallet.

The pic. my father must have looked at, over and over again.

It's truly unbelievable that I now hold his wallet in my hands, after so many years.The wallet still had Japanese bills in it.If this wallet only could talk, it probably has an unbelievable story to tell.

Thanks Reverend Hamel, for being there for my father.

Reverend Hamel,
Thank you so much for making sure that my mother got back the wedding ring, and the other few possessions. Thanks to Mr. E.Veenstra, who had promised you to hand these in person to my mother if he survived.
Reverend Hamel I have to let you know that Mr. E.Veenstra survived that hell in Burma.
I am the daughter on that picture(Thea with my mother) which is almost unrecognizable.And I am oh so sorry that I only now find out that you survived that place as well, and wrote a book.
My mother would never talk about that time; it must have been too painful. She never knew about the last resting place they gave my father Klaas van der Wal: in Kanchanaburi, and I always keep wondering,"How is that possible?" she would have been so happy.
Thank you again Reverend Hamel, and Mr. Veenstra.

Here follows the letter from Mr. E.A.Veenstra.

This letter was written to my mother on February 26 1946. Soon after that we left for Holland. In 1947 my mother received a condolence  letter from Queen Wilhelmina.

It says:

                                                                                                       The Hague. The Loo, May 9, 1947

                                                                                                        Palace Noordeinde

  Dear Mrs. S.v.d.Wal-Sijtsma


After your husband Klaas was taken prison by the Japanese , he passed away on September 18 1943, in Kui,Burma. Deeply affected by your loss, I would like to let You and the rest of your family know, that I  am
sending my hearty sympathy. May his offer to our Country and the whole of the Kingdom give us a better and happier future.

Wilhelmina

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is really sad that I had to find all these things after my mother and stepfather passed away.I found lots of things from my Stepfather too. He was in the Pacific in World War 11, on a ship  the Boschfontein, for 6 long years. I will write about that on my next blog and also about my mother and I arriving in Holland.

Is it ever going to stop????

Today May 24, Victoria Day, another soldier killed in Afghanistan. I feel so sad. He was only 26 years old. The age of my father when he died a Prisoner of War, by the Japanese, in 1943.
I guess as long as there are these fanatic's in the world, good people have to die, to make it a safer and a better place for us to live in." They are giving their tomorrow for our today."

They shall not grow old,
As we that left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years distress
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them,


This  was written for the soldiers who died in 1941-1945. Now it is 2010, and the beat goes on!

While I am writing this story, firecrackers are going of, to celebrate Summer is here. I can't stand the sound of firecrackers they sound like gunshots and bombs going off. I hate it. Wish they could celebrate it some what different. It is not even dark yet so you cannot even see the fireworks.When I was a little girl and we had just come back from Indonesia, my first experience to see firework was in Zandvoort in The Netherlands. I screamed my head off,I was so scared they had to take me away from it. I still don't like it. And I have to say:"What a waste of money"!

Monique found out a little bit more about her grandfather Klaas van der Wal

Monique our daughter wrote an e-mail to Neil Macperson, and received an e-mail back from Andrew Snow TBRC. Thank you Monique.
This is the information she received:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Snow
Thailand-Burma Railway Centre
Kanchanaburi
Thailand (www.tbrconline.com)

Hi Monique

I have searched our records for information on your grandfather Klaas van der Wal and have attached the records we have available.
Scan of Kui Yea Cemetery where he was originally buried
Scan of Kui Yea work Camp
Copy of Dutch burial records

TBRC POW Death record giving his death details and Cemetery site now.
Picture of his headstone.

I am afraid that we do not have details on his movements on the railway, before his death. So I hope that what we found gives you some information you were looking for. If you have anymore questions please ask and I will try to help you.

All the best,

Andrew

This is where he was laid to rest and from where his remains were transferred to Kanchanaburi.My father's grave is the third row letter K, fifth from the right.

Kui Yea work camp.

.

His POW death record.

TBRC Pow death record. It shows details where his grave is in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

                                              For every sleeper laid,a life was lost
                                              For every life lost, a sleeper was laid.
                                              Sleep in Peace, the crosses you bear
                                              Over 90.000 crosses, remember well!

And so they went, day by day, week by week, month by month, to the bridge on the River Kwai. With sudden stubbornness, unyielding to impossible odds, struggling to perish or to do the formidable, building the bridge for the twin line of steel. Winding through hills, plains and steaming jungle, two hundred and fifty miles long, resting on sleepers, resting on the memory of perished, working to death on the Burma Railroad.

My father's first resting place,Kuie at the site of the railway tracks, after the war his remains were transferred to Kanchanaburi.

Never look a Jap in the eye 

It's likely to trigger your time to die

Nowhere to hide and nowhere to run,

The remorseless fanatic with a gun

Cruelty and starvation they simply struggled on

All hope of any kind of future long gone

Laboring on the railway in the heat

Backbreaking and blistered feet

So was their lot, those years ago,

Their agonies! We will never know.

Win Rainer.

                                         

My father at the Dago Falls in Bandoeng, 1940.

                  

This beautiful country Indonesia. Paradise on Earth, so peaceful, was changed in violence, cruelty and into Hell by the Japanese.
My father was taken prison and transported to Thailand, where it was the beginning of a terrible ordeal in a"Green jungle of ' HELL'. The Japanese were planning to build a railroad-line, through the jungle.The ordeal had already started when they had to board a ship in Batavia and were taken to Singapore.                            

Monument in The Hague

                                           GOOD SPIRIT PREVAILED
                                           December 8 1941-August 15 1945
                                           Second World War in Netherlands-Indies.


Indies Monument in The Hague, in remembrance to all the Dutchmen and the Military men, who were the victims from the Japanese occupation. (1941-1945) World War 11 in former Dutch-Indies. They who lost their lives in combat, in Prison Camps and those who perished during compulsory labor.

This Monument is also dedicated to the women and children who were in Japanese prison camp.
__________________________________________________________________________


The memorial cemeteries and other memorial monuments are for the next of kin very important. Because nobody would like that their relatives, friends of unknown companions will be forgotten in history. Their has to be a place to commemorate and to mourn.

SALVADOR DALI said:
"Through each death a memory gets born"

But when our people died there was no time for remembrance. They had to try to stay alive in and outside the camps, and also after the capitulation of the Japanese. Dieing through unbelievable violence, and chaos,"THE BERSIAP TIME"

The war in Indonesia was put a site, because in Holland people were to busy thinking about their own suffering with the German Occupation. It took 66 years after the capitulation, for the survivors, who had suffered so immensely, finally were able to come together to commemorate the Japanese occupation.

MOM this Monument is for you and for your sister Eke. This is a memorial for all the suffering you had to go through, and for both your husbands, you had to leave behind in foreign soil.

                                                     MAY THEY REST IN PEACE!

Oceans away...but never be forgotten!

                                        

My mom.

 
                                         IS IT NOT TRUE?
When you think about it again,
to that beautiful land of emerald,
Just keep that softness for yourself.
Nobody is interested;
there exist a glass barrier between you,
and all these people around
Is it not true that I loved in that faraway land?
Is it not true that I was  imprisoned there?
Is it not true that I suffered there?
Is it not true that we got freed?

Everything is true!
I remember sawa's(rice-fields) and beautiful tropical sun, and sunsets!
I wished I could forget, after all this time!
All the love, all the sorrow, pretend you don't know and forgot!
Pretend that you never knew that land,
Pretend that it was a phantom, that broke like glass.
Tell them that you finally woke up!

Is it really not true that I loved there?
And is it really not true that I was imprisoned and freed there?

Everything is true!!
The sawa's and the tropical sun, the beautiful sunsets
I wished that I could forget, I try so hard!
It has been so long ago, I do my best, but I remember still the same.

A poem dedicated to my parents.

In a far away land, oceans away
For so many years we did not know where you lay
It took 60 years, and finally we knew
Where they laid you to rest
Its a peaceful place, it is the best.
It seems so long ago.

They gave you a beautiful place of your own
In that far away land,Thailand
I would like you to know
That you are not laying alone.
It seems so long ago.

After so many years, for mom the pain has gone
But you were always in her thoughts
And she would like you to know
That your daughter grew up
And was able to have a beautiful life.
It seems so long ago.

Your death was not in vain
Although it caused a lot of pain
For so many years we did not know
Where you were laid to rest.
It seems so long ago.

But now we found out
That you are in this beautiful place
The name is Kanchanaburi
And we would like you to know
That the Japanese are not there any more.
It seems so long ago.

This land belongs to the Thai people
And I would like you to know
That they take care of that beautiful place
Where they laid you to rest.
The name of the place is Kanchanaburi.
It seems so long ago

Rest in peace.

Written by: Thea(Tetske Trijntje) Bisenberger-van der Wal

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand

My fathers resting place, Kanchanaburi.

I wrote this for my father, who I never knew.
I wrote this for my mother too.
A war is a horrible thing
Which can take away everything from you..

I was one of the lucky ones,who went through life with a wonderful step father.
Thank you DAD, you were a real father to me!

But, although he and my mother were happy together,
There always was a lingering memory between them.

May they rest in peace!