“We often had roll-calls, standing in lines of four alongside the barracks, sometimes several times a day. We often stood for hours in the baking sun. I always had a small piece of crochet work with me. It had to be small so I could hide it quickly if the Japs came by. If you were caught, they hit you hard. I was working on this crochet piece when we were liberated. I never finished it.”
Ria Bussink, 12 years old at the time.

Men and women separated
The soldiers who had been made prisoners of war were put to work in camps, sometimes in the East Indies, but also in Burma, Taiwan and Japan. In the course of the occupation, all Dutch nationals and Dutch East Indians with ‘insufficient Indonesian blood’ were also imprisoned in camps: men and women separated. Boys stayed in the women’s camps until they were 10 or 12 years old, and were then taken away from their mothers.

Rules were tightened
The camps for the civilian detainees were initially not entirely closed off from the outside world. From mid-1943 the rules were tightened. Bamboo fencing with barbed wire was erected around the camps. All the inmates had to stand together for a roll-call twice a day. The inmates were forced to work. At night, everyone had to stay indoors, and no lights were permitted. Nobody was allowed any valuable possessions. There were regular checks, and infringements of the rules were punished severely. The camps were overflowing, and food became increasingly scarce. Around one in eight detainees died of exhaustion and malnutrition.