Destruction brigades
Oil company employees learned how to blow up oil and petrol stocks, so the Japanese wouldn’t be able to use them.

Lieutenant Waasdorp, a member of a destruction brigade: “I was in charge of the destruction of the oil and petrol stocks of the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij on Borneo. (¼) The petrol had to be burned with thermite bombs hung between the barrels of petrol, with a wire leading to a battery a hundred metres away. (¼) I saw a huge flame followed by exploding barrels spewing petrol high into the sky. Thanks to the fact that the wind was blowing in the right direction, I escaped unhurt.”

In full regalia
The Japanese killed everyone who had helped in these destructions. And they held the Dutch administrators responsible for any destruction in their regions. If the civil servants remained at their posts, they were punished. On Borneo, assistant resident Bouwe Kuik, together with two colleagues, waited for the Japanese in full regalia. The three were stabbed to death with bayonets on the spot.

Daughter Ineke Kuik: “A colleague of my father’s had said: ‘We're all going to die’, and to my father: ‘I think you should go. You have young children.’ But my father stayed. He was a devout Christian with a great sense of duty, and he had sworn an oath of loyalty to the Queen. You couldn’t just walk away.”

The Dutch East Indies Broadcasting Company (NIROM)
Everyone listened to the radio for war news. On the day of the surrender, the Dutch East Indies Broadcasting Company (Nederlands-Indische Radio Omroep -- NIROM) in Batavia closed its broadcast with the words: “We are closing down now, farewell, until better days.” But the radio studio in Batavia continued to broadcast, and finished every evening with the ‘Wilhelmus’.

When, on 18 March 1942, the Japanese discovered that this was the Dutch national anthem they sprung into action. They wanted to know who was responsible for the broadcasts.

NIROM employee Bert Garthoff: “Kusters, Kudding and Van der Hoogte said they were responsible. It all came out in separate interrogations with lots of pushing, beatings, hours of standing, and shouting, of course.” As punishment, the three were beheaded.

Guus de Wilde, head of the technical department: “That was a huge shock! Three men in the prime of their lives, murdered just like that.”

“Obligatory registration was introduced. You had to report to the Japanese army department and state where you were born and where your parents had been born. You really had to have 85 percent Indonesian blood to stay out of the camps, but for me it was sufficient that both my parents had been born in the Dutch East Indies.”
Dutch East Indian

“We were all registered to check whether we were to be detained or not. My mother had to pay 80 guilders for her pendaftaran (registration papers), and 150 guilders for my eldest brother’s papers. But we hadn’t been paid any wages for several months. We couldn’t even buy food. My mother had to sell beautiful things to get money. I hardly ever saw my mother cry, but she cried then.”
Dutch national

“We Indonesian boys were given a Surat Ketarangan (card). It had a photograph on it to stop Dutch East Indian boys from using them. But there were Dutch East Indian boys who did have those cards. They’d forged them or been given one by the village elder, sometimes after threats or bribery.”
Indonesian

“If you didn’t register you were an outlaw, you had no protection. Although my family had difficulty paying for it, my eldest brother and I registered. Otherwise we would not have been able to travel from one city to the next, and of course we had to earn money somehow.”
Chinese national