THE GURKA’S
Slowly the feeling of freedom spread to Java, the war was over the japanees had lost,we were enjoying our freedom, with music and friends, who came to us from other camps, especially the man.
At that time we were in camp 9 or 11 in Ambarawa. It used to be a school for girls run by nuns. At the square before the camp was a church and many trees. Entering the camp you found yourself in the hall, here were also the kitchens and various other rooms.The whole school was situated on hill slope.
The Japs were living in the actual schoolbuilding, we where staying in the nuns convent and other buildings.
The first part of our camp started below and then went up. On the top was a large grass field surrounded by barracks, where many women and children lived and slept. At the end of the field were the toilets on the right and left was another huge barrack. Behind this barrack a small path with a long wall lead to a U formed galery. In the galery were very small rooms of circa 4 square meters. In those rooms we had to sleep with 8 people. In the middle of the U galery was a small building with toilets and two showers. At the end of the U was an open field reaching all the way up to the wall that surrounded everything.
In this open field was a nice tree, where we, the children, gathered and played. It was our area.
After the liberation men and boys came back. The first men and boys were welcomed with cheers.
Lots of other people visited our camp bringing sad and serious news of the other camps.
The Indonesian people did not accept the oppression of the whites anymore and tried to make this clear to murder or imprison the white people, who they found on their ways, looking for family members.
We enjoyed the return of the boys and men, among whom were doctors and technicians, who in turn could help us.
While sitting in that lovely tree, enjoying freedom all of a sudden three bullets flew around me. Falling out of the tree and hearing all women yell for their children, I realized that something was wrong, but what was not clear yet.
We ran to our rooms and ducked under the window sills laying flat on the ground while bullets flew around us. Suddenly we were attacked by Indonesian men, who came over the wall and drove us out of the rooms with rifles through the small corridors to the other side. There on the top of the grass field everyone ran as chickens without a head. The men came from everywhere with coloured faces, rifles and hand grenades. They besieged the large group on the grass field. In the surrounding buildings women barricaded the rooms with their beds and chests, but the Indonesians wanted them out also. Everyone had to go to the grass field. The rest of the angry men stood in half a circle yelling at us and pointing their riffles.
They became nervous because it took so much time to get everyone out. They were so nervous that they began to shoot.
The scenes that took place in front of our eyes was like a hollywood film. Everyone was running and fleeing in all directions. After a while we reached a toilet at the end of the field where we locked ourselves in. We stood there in mortal fear thinking that, after all the misery we had survived, we would now die anyway.
Then we suddenly heard a terrible noise and loud yells, this was it, this was the end. But someone shrieked: the Gurka’s, the Gurka’s. Nobody believed it until one of the Gurka's jumped off the roof of the toilet and grinned at us. He ran to the grassfield with his riffle. Everyone waited deadly quiet. The infernal racket was deafening. All you heard was yelling, shooting of machine-guns, all very scary. We felt our hearts thumping in our throats with fear but also with expectation, hoping they could save us.
My God, pugnacious they climed over the roofs, coming from everywhere and within an hour all was over. Deadly silence.
Silently everyone came out of their hiding places and after taking care of the wounded and counting the death, it hit us, we realized that we were liberated again.
A Scottish major was leading these incredible, well trained, strong and lightning fast and sometimes cruel fighters. The Indonesians they caught, found no mercy.
We thought: that is it, but from the woods on the hill the fighting started again.
Never will I forget, what the Gurka’s did for us. The way they came into action after a 3-day journey deadly tired and hungry after being warned by a couple of men from the camp that in the camp women and childred were murdered by the Indonesian. And then again fighting with bullets in their legs for another three days. The bullets were later removed, not in an operating theatre and without morphine, but somewhere in a hiding place with bullets flying over our heads. Never had I felt such admiration for those little men from India, who so heroicly saved women and children under the leadership of a Scottish major and a couple of English officers. Mind you the English were really great then.
With trucks we were taken from this dangerous camp and driven to Banjoebiroe and from there to Semarang to the coast. The whole way from Banjoebiroe to Semarang was bombed by an English warship from out of the sea, it looked as if someone had shaven a large path through the forest. Escorted by English soldiers in jeeps along side, behind and before us the women and children in the trucks covered with mattresses were brought to the coast. The soldiers were joking and singing all the time. We sang along and laughed a lot during this frightning journey. Once in a while we stopped and then the soldiers jumped out of the jeeps and started shooting back at anything that moved. When everything was quiet again we went on. Also in Semarang our stay with all those English was full of joy. They learned us to sing their songs, we were dancing and having fun with them. Thus the anxious days passed quickly. With a ship of the troops, the Amhurst Victory, we sailed to Batavia and from there, with a lot of other people we departed for Holland with the Klipfontein.
I am incredibly grateful of the heroic Gurka’s as well as the English soldiers and the great Scottish major. From the moment they rescued us until our departure to Holland they gave us many pleasant moments and the feeling of safety. Unfortunately I was never able to thank them personally for liberating us the second time.
Dinkie
donderdag 21 oktober 2010
donderdag 7 oktober 2010
dinsdag 5 oktober 2010
The Holy Tree.
Once again we had a house in the mountains. This time also with a huge lawn around it. The lawn was completely surrounded by a fence. At one end the fence came a bit inward, behind that spot a lot of bushes were growing on a small hill. Behind the bushes stood an enormous tree. To give you an idea how large the tree was, it needed tree people with outstreched arms to embrace its trunk. In the middle of the lawn was our swimming pool, where we spent many days.
Almost every day we heard people going to the tree singing songs and praying. It appeared to be a holy tree. The Indonesian people brought the most delicious food, sweets and cookies and other things in bananaleaves, as an offer to their holy tree. It all looked and smelled wonderful. As we looked at it, it made our mouth water. Our “baboe”, the Indonesian word for household help, told us that if you brought food to the tree, nothing bad will happen to you.
One day we sneaked of through the fence to look at the tree closely. With amazement we looked at all the delicacies laying there. My brother said:”I would like to try some of this food when everyone is gone. I did not think that was a good idea and told him that when he did something terrible would happen to him. My brother looked at me in surprise saying: “do you really believe that rubbish?”
Of course we went back to the tree again, when everyone was taking a nap in the afternoon, in the Tropics it is custom to rest in the afternoon. Nobody was there and no one was in sight. My brother bent carefully forward to have a closer look at the food and select something he really liked. Before he could take something, we heard a loud rustle in the bushes. Although we were afraid of nothing, we actually were scared of snakes. We left quickly because we thought the noise came from snakes.
The next time we went, making sure no one saw us, my brother again tried to take some of the delicacies. Once more we heard the loud rustle, it was so loud that we stayed in our tracks very silently, seeing the bushes going back and forth. There is nothing said my brother. Yes, I said there is a probably a snake also eating something of the food.
We ran away then.
From that day onwards we have never been back to the tree trying to take something away. Instead we went to put some food there ourselves, hoping that it also protected us from bad luck and indeed it did, nothing really bad happened to us, we were all still alive and healthy. Dinky
Dinkie
Almost every day we heard people going to the tree singing songs and praying. It appeared to be a holy tree. The Indonesian people brought the most delicious food, sweets and cookies and other things in bananaleaves, as an offer to their holy tree. It all looked and smelled wonderful. As we looked at it, it made our mouth water. Our “baboe”, the Indonesian word for household help, told us that if you brought food to the tree, nothing bad will happen to you.
One day we sneaked of through the fence to look at the tree closely. With amazement we looked at all the delicacies laying there. My brother said:”I would like to try some of this food when everyone is gone. I did not think that was a good idea and told him that when he did something terrible would happen to him. My brother looked at me in surprise saying: “do you really believe that rubbish?”
Of course we went back to the tree again, when everyone was taking a nap in the afternoon, in the Tropics it is custom to rest in the afternoon. Nobody was there and no one was in sight. My brother bent carefully forward to have a closer look at the food and select something he really liked. Before he could take something, we heard a loud rustle in the bushes. Although we were afraid of nothing, we actually were scared of snakes. We left quickly because we thought the noise came from snakes.
The next time we went, making sure no one saw us, my brother again tried to take some of the delicacies. Once more we heard the loud rustle, it was so loud that we stayed in our tracks very silently, seeing the bushes going back and forth. There is nothing said my brother. Yes, I said there is a probably a snake also eating something of the food.
We ran away then.
From that day onwards we have never been back to the tree trying to take something away. Instead we went to put some food there ourselves, hoping that it also protected us from bad luck and indeed it did, nothing really bad happened to us, we were all still alive and healthy. Dinky
Dinkie
zondag 3 oktober 2010
How the war in Indonesie Started.
25th January 2008
How the war in Indonesia began
Before we knew, they were there, the small yellow coloured men, the Japanese. My parents were terribly afraid. A lot had already happened, the battle at the Java sea was lost, many friends lost their lives. War for an eight year old child is impalpable.
One night we were startled by a noise in the house. One of our servants, who went to his family we thought, stood severely injured in our back garden. My parents helped him. He was very seriously manhandled by the Japs they believed he was a spy. He told them about us and his work with us as a djongos. Fearing for his life, my parents hided him. It was time to flee, because the Japs would certainly come to search for him. In the middle of the night our parents woke us up. Outside in the garden were two ox carts being loaded very silently, no one spoke. My grandmother, Elsie, was also there. Very carefully making no noise the carts were filled with most of our belongings. When that was done, we left through the dark streets of Soerabaja in the direction of the mountains.
The wounded servant was also with us, laying in the last cart.
My father said: there are many barriers set up by the Japs on the main roads we have to be carefull. My heart turned in my stomach, because when a Jap caught you, they would interrogate you in their camps and that certainly would not be good. We had heard the most terrible stories about it.
So we took the very small village alleys and were as quiet as mice. The only noise to be heard were the cracks of the carts and the wip we sometimes had to use to get the oxes going. The carts rolled back and forth as well as the lamps hanging above them.
Finally, my father said: we have made it. We were on our way to Nongodjadjar, a holiday resort well known to us. Our servant got off and disappeared in the night.
Slowly we climbed up the road and heard the sounds of the woods. Next to every small village we passed, were small stalls, huts covered with bamboe, where one could drink coffee or eat rice, shish kebab or something else. People didn’t drink the coffee from cups, but slurped it from a saucer.
The smell of the charcoal mixed with the smell of the shish kebab was delicious.
We silently passed through this country I loved so much, with its beautiful scenery and well known sounds in the direction of the mountains. Now and then the moon lighted up the sky and you could see the breathtaking view.
Far away from the village Nongodjadjar my parents had rented a house on the slopes of the mountains. The house and its vicinity contained and provided everything, you did need. The house was squarely built and beautiful. On the ground floor was a kitchen, a storage room, a room with a breeding machine for chickens, a room to curdle milk or to make butter of yoghurt and a room with lots of tools.
In the kitchen a staircase led to the big square verandah, which was covered and fenced. On all four corners were telescopes, so we could see the mountains far away and the valley below. We often looked through them, specially when my father was due to arrive, so we could always see him coming up. He was still working in Soerabaja. He could only come over during the weekend, untill that was not possible any more. The verandah was great, we spent many hours there running and playing.
We also had a vegetable garden and a stable with a pig and a cow. The cow provided us with milk from which we also made butter. Further we had a lot of chickens. We used the incubator to breed them so we always had enough eggs and chicken meat. Behind all this was a huge cornfield. My brother and I hided ourselves there and created thus our own safe space. There we hoped to survive the Japs.
The fresh bread we could make, the milk and butter of our own cow made sure we had a good life. We were very lonely though. With our dog, Spankie, we walked in the mountains and had fun.
Every evening the spiritus lamps were lightened and we drank hot cacao. Sometimes my mother read us a story, if she was not too tired. Once in a while a local man from the nearby village came with groceries or the mail or to help my mother.
One day we were invited to a Javanese wedding in the nearby village. A wedding here lasts a day and a night. We slept in the village in one of the houses of a local resident, who was very kind to us. It was a wonderful party with lots of food, sweets in various colours and Indonesian puppets. People were dancing till late at night.
In the morning we went to the kali(river). In the kali, one does everything, such as washing yourselves, brushing your teeth and even doing your needs.
For months we stayed happily in our house in the mountains until one evening my father came back. He and my mother spoke for hours during this evening. Next morning we were told that we had to go back to Soerabaja and from there to Malang a town nearby. If we did not do that we would be killed by the Japs. Everything we owned was either sold or given away, even our beloved dog.
We were devastated but crying did not help, we went back to Soerabaja, after two weeks clearing our beloved house in the mountains. From there on in trucks to Malang with even less lugage. We only were allowed to take what we could carry ourselves. We were intensely sad of all the things we had to leave behind.
We did not know then that the worst was still to come, i.e. saying goodbye to my father and the rest .....
Dinkie
How the war in Indonesia began
Before we knew, they were there, the small yellow coloured men, the Japanese. My parents were terribly afraid. A lot had already happened, the battle at the Java sea was lost, many friends lost their lives. War for an eight year old child is impalpable.
One night we were startled by a noise in the house. One of our servants, who went to his family we thought, stood severely injured in our back garden. My parents helped him. He was very seriously manhandled by the Japs they believed he was a spy. He told them about us and his work with us as a djongos. Fearing for his life, my parents hided him. It was time to flee, because the Japs would certainly come to search for him. In the middle of the night our parents woke us up. Outside in the garden were two ox carts being loaded very silently, no one spoke. My grandmother, Elsie, was also there. Very carefully making no noise the carts were filled with most of our belongings. When that was done, we left through the dark streets of Soerabaja in the direction of the mountains.
The wounded servant was also with us, laying in the last cart.
My father said: there are many barriers set up by the Japs on the main roads we have to be carefull. My heart turned in my stomach, because when a Jap caught you, they would interrogate you in their camps and that certainly would not be good. We had heard the most terrible stories about it.
So we took the very small village alleys and were as quiet as mice. The only noise to be heard were the cracks of the carts and the wip we sometimes had to use to get the oxes going. The carts rolled back and forth as well as the lamps hanging above them.
Finally, my father said: we have made it. We were on our way to Nongodjadjar, a holiday resort well known to us. Our servant got off and disappeared in the night.
Slowly we climbed up the road and heard the sounds of the woods. Next to every small village we passed, were small stalls, huts covered with bamboe, where one could drink coffee or eat rice, shish kebab or something else. People didn’t drink the coffee from cups, but slurped it from a saucer.
The smell of the charcoal mixed with the smell of the shish kebab was delicious.
We silently passed through this country I loved so much, with its beautiful scenery and well known sounds in the direction of the mountains. Now and then the moon lighted up the sky and you could see the breathtaking view.
Far away from the village Nongodjadjar my parents had rented a house on the slopes of the mountains. The house and its vicinity contained and provided everything, you did need. The house was squarely built and beautiful. On the ground floor was a kitchen, a storage room, a room with a breeding machine for chickens, a room to curdle milk or to make butter of yoghurt and a room with lots of tools.
In the kitchen a staircase led to the big square verandah, which was covered and fenced. On all four corners were telescopes, so we could see the mountains far away and the valley below. We often looked through them, specially when my father was due to arrive, so we could always see him coming up. He was still working in Soerabaja. He could only come over during the weekend, untill that was not possible any more. The verandah was great, we spent many hours there running and playing.
We also had a vegetable garden and a stable with a pig and a cow. The cow provided us with milk from which we also made butter. Further we had a lot of chickens. We used the incubator to breed them so we always had enough eggs and chicken meat. Behind all this was a huge cornfield. My brother and I hided ourselves there and created thus our own safe space. There we hoped to survive the Japs.
The fresh bread we could make, the milk and butter of our own cow made sure we had a good life. We were very lonely though. With our dog, Spankie, we walked in the mountains and had fun.
Every evening the spiritus lamps were lightened and we drank hot cacao. Sometimes my mother read us a story, if she was not too tired. Once in a while a local man from the nearby village came with groceries or the mail or to help my mother.
One day we were invited to a Javanese wedding in the nearby village. A wedding here lasts a day and a night. We slept in the village in one of the houses of a local resident, who was very kind to us. It was a wonderful party with lots of food, sweets in various colours and Indonesian puppets. People were dancing till late at night.
In the morning we went to the kali(river). In the kali, one does everything, such as washing yourselves, brushing your teeth and even doing your needs.
For months we stayed happily in our house in the mountains until one evening my father came back. He and my mother spoke for hours during this evening. Next morning we were told that we had to go back to Soerabaja and from there to Malang a town nearby. If we did not do that we would be killed by the Japs. Everything we owned was either sold or given away, even our beloved dog.
We were devastated but crying did not help, we went back to Soerabaja, after two weeks clearing our beloved house in the mountains. From there on in trucks to Malang with even less lugage. We only were allowed to take what we could carry ourselves. We were intensely sad of all the things we had to leave behind.
We did not know then that the worst was still to come, i.e. saying goodbye to my father and the rest .....
Dinkie
The Village Story.
A VILLAGE STORY
When I heard the next story of an occurrence that took place in our village I thought I have to write this down. It gives you an idea on how you can reach an old age.
A bachelor of 75 years, who neglected himself a bit, was living in a beautiful farm with some land around it.
In the winter he was always ill, mostly with bronchitis. The physician came often and gave him antibiotics. The old man was probably too thrifty to stoke and old houses are humid and draughty. Every winter the man was very weak and his neighbours feared for his life.
His neighbours, who helped him a lot, had the lunimous idea to buy his farm for a low price 98.000 guilders and in addition they would give him a hot meal every evening for as long as he lived.
The old bachelor rather liked the idea. As he had no next of kin the deal was made.
Everyone believed that the neighbours were very lucky that they were enabled to make such a wonderful deal. They all thought that it would not be long before the old sick and feeble man would die. But believe it or not, this sick and weak man became 96 years old. For 21 years the neighbours had to cook diner for this man every day.
So you see, if you want to get old, you have to close such a deal.
The farm was later sold for 198,000 guilders and you can say that both parties were very lucky. Dinkie.
When I heard the next story of an occurrence that took place in our village I thought I have to write this down. It gives you an idea on how you can reach an old age.
A bachelor of 75 years, who neglected himself a bit, was living in a beautiful farm with some land around it.
In the winter he was always ill, mostly with bronchitis. The physician came often and gave him antibiotics. The old man was probably too thrifty to stoke and old houses are humid and draughty. Every winter the man was very weak and his neighbours feared for his life.
His neighbours, who helped him a lot, had the lunimous idea to buy his farm for a low price 98.000 guilders and in addition they would give him a hot meal every evening for as long as he lived.
The old bachelor rather liked the idea. As he had no next of kin the deal was made.
Everyone believed that the neighbours were very lucky that they were enabled to make such a wonderful deal. They all thought that it would not be long before the old sick and feeble man would die. But believe it or not, this sick and weak man became 96 years old. For 21 years the neighbours had to cook diner for this man every day.
So you see, if you want to get old, you have to close such a deal.
The farm was later sold for 198,000 guilders and you can say that both parties were very lucky. Dinkie.
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