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