Rose: "We went into the camps in March or April 1942 - I was 7 - and came out at the end of 1945, so I was almost 11."
Sumatra fell on March 28, 1942, when Dutch Major General R. T. Overakker and 2,000 soldiers surrendered near the town of Kutatjane in northern Sumatra. Many Allied prisoners were forced by the Japanese to build a railway line between Pekanbaru and Moera.
"The first camp we went to was in the mountains, in Brastagi on the island of Sumatra where we lived. This region was known for its fresh air. Being at altitude, it's never too hot. The rubber and tobacco companies in the area had built small bungalows for their employees' families.
During very hot spells, my father would send us up there for a two-week vacation in the cool. In March 1942, we were on vacation with many other families when the Japanese arrived. They made us understand that they had taken control of the country and gave us 24 hours to pack before going to the camps. We were allowed one suitcase per family.
At first, the Japanese interned all the women and children in a local school. After a few days, they sent the boys over 10 to the men's camps, which were in fact prison camps. Of course, it was terrible for the youngest among them and for their mothers. But at least, in the prison camps, the Japanese were obliged to respect international conventions on prisoners of war. In the end, the men were treated a little better than we were. As my brother James was only three at the time, he stayed with Nana, Anita and me.
At the very beginning, we still owned a few things. For example, Nana had brought back a large piece of Marseille soap, so large that it lasted for most of the three and a half years we spent in the camps. Back then, it was real Marseille soap, nothing like the soap we buy today, which is so mild you can wash every day with it. It was a formidably effective product. As we walked barefoot in the camp and often injured ourselves with our delicate little feet - especially in the early days - Nana used her soap block to disinfect our wounds. She would put a little on the wound, wrap a bandage around it and the soap would absorb all the pus.
We were housed in a school. The Japanese had built two-storey wooden barracks inside the classrooms, with a small staircase to climb up. There were lots of mattresses on the floor, and all the children slept together. I remember sleeping upstairs, and one day, because I was sleepwalking, I fell in my sleep without realizing it, because there was no handrail. I didn't hurt myself because the floor wasn't very high and I was still as "flexible" as all children...
One day, Nana and a few other women spotted a hole in the ground beneath the wooden fence surrounding the camp. One night, they decided to use this small tunnel to sneak out of the camp and collect food in the nearby Indonesian village.
I should also explain that before the Japanese landed, all these women used to go out a lot, even on vacations. They had brought with them to Brastagi their beautiful lamé dresses with incredible necklines, magnificent jewels and so on.
When the Japanese landed and gave the order to pack up, Nana - like many of the women - decided to take a few dresses and jewelry with her, which she would later use as a means of payment. And that's what she did that evening: she exchanged one of her dresses for some food to take back to camp. Nana and her acolytes went on two or three more nocturnal outings, until they were unfortunately arrested by the Japanese.
When we woke up the next morning, we didn't know what had happened. We got out of bed as usual to join our mothers, but they were gone. That's when we heard the Japanese shout over the loudspeaker to inform the whole camp that several women had been arrested and put in prison. During the night, they had hastily constructed a sort of bamboo cage in the middle of the camp courtyard, so that the prisoners would be exposed for all to see. Our poor mothers remained crammed in there, without comfort or food, for several days.
There was only one kitchen for the whole camp, and it was the women prisoners who did the cooking in large pots. At first, the Japanese gave what they had. There was rice, a few vegetables and sometimes a little chicken or beef. Of course, quantities diminished as the war progressed. Even the Japanese didn't have much to eat in the end, as the Indonesian population wasn't in their favor either.
As a result, the women of the camp cultivated small market gardens and tried to grow vegetables and fruit with a little "calories" to compensate for the lack of food. These included sweet potatoes, known in Indonesian as "Ubi".
Throughout her time in prison, Anita and I would go every day to pick "Ubis" from the little market garden and give them to Nana. I don't know how she ate them, as she didn't have a kitchen in that bamboo cage... Anyway, she had nothing else to eat. In the end, I think she stayed in that cage with the other women for a week.
This didn't stop her from taking other risks later on. Nana was very resourceful. For example: after a while, our shoes and clothes were very worn. In the school we attended, there was a gym. And in this gym hall, there were mats, rings, espaliers and a leather sports horse.
One day, Nana and the other women entered the gym and started dismantling the equipment one by one. They salvaged everything they could: fabrics, nails, wood, leather... In our camp, there were also nuns who were very good at practical work. They were the ones who taught Nana and all the other ladies in the camp (who weren't very resourceful to begin with) how to sew, how to tinker, but also how to treat wounds.
With everything they had salvaged, they were able to make a whole host of practical things for everyday life. For example: with a piece of wood, a small leather strap (taken from the gym horse) and a few nails picked up left and right, they made sandals called "Teklek" in Indonesian.
Our mothers were very keen for us to wear these Teklek, as there was a rumor going around at the time that these sandals could literally save our lives.
In fact, not far from the camp, there was a village of Bataks (whom we called "Batakers"), a people who were mostly Christian, but who were at the time very hostile to us colonizers.
Three Batak warriors armed with sabres and spears, in front of a wooden building.
A rumor circulated that these Bataks would sneak into our camp at night and plant small poison-soaked spikes on the courtyard floor, with the aim of fatally poisoning as many of us as possible. A bit like landmines. Naturally, the women in the camp were very worried, which is why it was so important to them that we all wore shoes when we moved around the camp."
(To be continued)
My mother, Kathleen Voûte née Piprell, wearing a pretty evening dress