THE ATTACK ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN
The following story took place in 1946 in the than so called Dutch Indies, in a Jappenese prison camp.
Vibrant and jubilant, liberation had taken her entrance. It came suddenly, almost as a surprise, in one single day. It was great, seductive, intoxicating, unbelievable. Sitting up there in the tree, looking over the camp wall to freedom with a bright happy feeling: “we made it”. Other children in the tree laughed and shouted to each other and pointed at the mountains. But then, a terrible noise coming from everywhere, a whistling sound, something that flew past your ear, danger! Like apples we fell out of the tree.
Mothers came running to us, yelling “come along, they are attacking us”. Bullets, running, fleeing into our small rooms, quickly on the ground, what is happening, than loud yelling on the other site of the wall:" merdeka". My mother shouted to us, run, the Indonesians are coming, than we saw them coming over the wall like pirates with war colors on their faces and guns, other wapons, frighting looking fellows. We ran as fast as we could. More Indonesians came over the wall, everyone ran in panic into the narrow pathway to the other side of the camp, to the very large open field. There also were Indonesians yelling: “merdeka, merdeka”. We all ran on the field as far to the end as possible, there were already a lot of people. The Indonesians stood in a broad circle around this big field, they stood everywhere with rifles at gunpoint, waiting for the order to shoot.’
In some of the barracks, all women had barricaded the doors and windows with their beds, tables and all their luggage, they did not want to come out to be killed without a fight. And whatever the attackers tried, they didn’t manage to get them out, which ultimately was our salvation. It lasted and lasted, everything was silent, fearfull we stood there on the field listening if they would get them out of the barracks. Suddenly they began shooting at random and throwing grenades. “get down”, people screamed, “get down”, we also screamed. The men that had already come back to their wives and children in our camp, threw the grenades back as fast as possible. Everyone was dead silent and we all began to pray. Laying flat on the grass, I suddenly felt a terrible blow close by, it was so bad that I thought my chest would burst apart and I had blood all over me and pieces of all sort of things. Oh God, I am dead, everything is broken, this it it. How strange, I can still hear, I can still see, if this is death, that cannot be so bad. How strange I can still move my fingers. Oh God, I am only wounded, but I don’t feel any pain.
Carefully, I looked at the things that were lying upon me: “where, where am I wounded?” Then I heard my mother’s voice: “get up, quickly, we have to get out of here, we have to go further to the back, quick, quick”. Can I do that, Oh God, it is not mine, it’s someone else’s, I could not fully believe it, but coming up and running I found out their was nothing wrong with me. Away, far away we ran as fast as we could to the back, where no Indonesians were. In the running crowd we lost my brother and went for the toilets were we crept on top of each other. My mother then heard my brother crying. She called: “Anton, we are here”. He came to our toilet. Weeping he said: “Mummy, how should I pray?” You never forget something like that. Cramped together we all were praying aloud, waiting to be killed. After some time we heard even worse wild shouts from the rooftops. Everybody in our toilet looked up with terrible fear in their eyes, wich I never will forget, this is the end, they said. Kiss your children goodbye, we will die. More terrible shouts and infernal noise, then shooting, bullets were flying around, pops, running, screaming was all we heard. Absolutely terrified we waited.
Someone yelled: “they are ours, it’s the Gurka’s, it really is.” It became dead quiet. Was it possible, would we be rescued? Very carefully some went looking and saw dark men passing by, grinning and laughing at us: “the Gurka’s, the best warriors there are”, someone said. “They come to liberate us”. Everyone started to cry and thank God.
And yes, one hour later the had captured some Indonesians and others fled. We came creeping out of our toilets looking around for relatives, we found my grandmother, who was overcome by panic, had ran so fast that see fell down and had kept silent as if she was dead. How you feel then is indescribable. You get your life back, you live, it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world, I have never ever forgotten this feeling.
I didn’t want to tell this story at first, but my eldest daughter made me do it and I am glad I did.
Dinkie
