June 2016

AanspraakAfdeling Verzetsdeelnemers en Oorlogsgetroffenen

Words can kill Betty Bausch-Polak warns young people against discrimination and racism Contents

The page numbers refer to the original Dutch edition

Page 3 Speaking for your benefit.

Page 4-5 Speech by Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam, at the 4 May Commemoration at Dam Square.

Page 6-7 Interview with Ahmed Aboutaleb. At fifteen, I had never heard of Hitler.

Page 8-11 Betty Bausch-Polak warns young people against discrimination and racism.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 2 Contents

The page numbers refer to the original Dutch edition

Page 12-15 Philip Everaars tells of his imprisonment at the camp at Dampit in East Java.

Page 16-17 The Backpay benefit scheme.

Page 22 Questions and answers.

No rights may be derived from this text. Translation: SVB, Amstelveen.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 3 Speaking for your benefit

Being invited to address you in this preface for the Our visit to Auschwitz left an indelible impression. first time is especially significant for me, particularly The infinite emptiness and silence of Sobibor, the as it coincides with the fifth anniversary of the factual description in Jules Schelvis’ book. The warm implementation of the war victims’ schemes by welcome in the Beth Joles and Beth Juliana homes the Sociale Verzekeringsbank. It gives me the in Israel. The ever-present memory of the war in opportunity not only to express my appreciation for my conversations with the SVB Client Council for the way our staff carry out their day-to-day tasks, but members of the resistance and victims of war. Our also to underline why we do what we do, and for interest in the Dutch East Indies community through whom we are doing it. contact with the Pelita Foundation and the recent implementation of the Backpay scheme, discussed I would like to start by introducing myself. My name in this issue of Aanspraak. is Ruud van Es and I am currently Acting Member of the SVB Board of Directors. I was born in Rotterdam All these experiences make me fully aware of our in 1959, after the war. My parents lived through duty to implement the schemes for victims of war every aspect of the war. It affected my father the with the utmost care and sensitivity to what you have most. As a boy, he watched the city burn from his been through, and realization of the responsibility bedroom window on the Noordereiland, and he was that our country bears. It is in their daily contacts 12 years old when he was hit by a stray bullet during with you that our staff have come to realise the a raid. It made him fearful. As he grew older, the importance of what they are doing. And I have come incident came back to him more and more often in to realise that they put their hearts and souls into his dreams, but he hardly ever spoke about it. His their work for you. suffering scarcely compared with what many others had suffered, but it had a huge influence on the rest of his life.

His silence on the subject meant that the war had little effect on my life. That changed in 2011 when Ruud van Es we took over the schemes for victims of war. Acting Member of the Board of Directors of the SVB

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 4 Speech by Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam at the 4 May Commemoration at Dam Square

Ladies and Gentlemen There are so many stories. They cause us a lot of grief. But they can also teach us a lot. They can teach It does me good to see so many children here us that evil begins with prejudice and humiliation: today. Children whom you are holding by the the Jews were forced to wear a star, their children hand or carrying on your shoulders. Children who were barred from their own classrooms. Roma and will soon, in turn, be carrying the world on their Sinti, gay people, and people who were mentally shoulders. When I was just a child, I lived in a small disabled: they did no one any harm, but there was village very far away. There were no books there, no place for them in Nazi Germany. and no TV. I had never heard mention of the Second World War. That is how a country can fall prey to primitive instincts and thoughtless emotions that wrench The height of evil for us was drought, because it society apart. Instincts that can pave the way to hate, caused the harvest to fail. It wasn’t until I went to to violence, and finally even to murder. Even today. the secondary school in the city that I learned about ‘war’. I still remember clearly my first ‘May 4’ in the That is why we must listen carefully to the stories Netherlands. I was 16, and living in The Hague. The of the past. The stories of survivors, eye-witnesses flags flying at half mast, the sorrow and the two- and those who lost their loved ones. It is our duty minute silence: it all made a deep impression on me. to them. They are asking us to cherish those stories and pass them on. Girls and boys They are asking us to keep using our hearts and Imagine that your class at school keeps getting minds, to continually examine our consciences, emptier. That your teacher tells you that Esther, so that the burden that falls on the shoulders Bram and Marianne are not allowed in your school of our children will be a little lighter. anymore because they’re said to be different. That is why we have come together today. 686 Jewish children from Rotterdam were murdered That is why we remember. in the death camps. Every year, we remember them, together with the school children who have studied their lives.

Imagine that your father or your big brother is suddenly taken away from your home. That is what happened during the huge raids in Rotterdam in November 1944. A football stadium full of tens of thousands of young men taken away and forced to work for the German war industry.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 5 At fifteen, I had never heard of Hitler

The man who spoke at the Dam Square comme- What made the strongest impression on you? moration ceremony on 4 May 2016 knew nothing ‘When I heard that people had been gassed during about Hitler until he was fifteen. In the isolated Rif the war. The fact that people were deported and mountains where Ahmed Aboutaleb grew up, Adolf gassed, not because they had done anything wrong Hitler and the Second World were simply never but simply because of who they were. I still find that mentioned. “I’d never even heard of the man”. shocking.’ He says it again, louder, ‘I still find that shocking’. What did you hear about the Second World War during your childhood in Morocco? As a young boy, what did you consider Ahmed Aboutaleb: ‘I didn’t know who Adolf Hitler to be the ultimate form of evil? was until I was fifteen. I’d never even heard of the ‘I had no notion of it. You have to understand, there man. As a child in Morocco, it wasn’t until high was Ahmed on a mountain with thirty or forty houses, school that I had my first history class. For the two no electricity and no television or newspapers. We years I was there, we only focused on the history of even spoke another language than the Arabic on the Morocco, that is, the Spanish occupation and the radio. So I didn’t have a concrete picture of a world French protectorate. We were never told anything enemy. For me, evil was hunger, lack of food and about the Second World War; nothing about the water. If there was no rain, the harvest was bad and concentration camps and the Holocaust.’ you starved.’

When Aboutaleb emigrated to the Netherlands Did you stand at Dam Square on 4 May at the age of fifteen, the Second World War was as a citizen of Rotterdam? certainly part of the curriculum at his new school ‘Not particularly. Of course I am a ‘Rotterdammer’ in The Hague. He acquired Dutch friends and the and inextricably linked to my position as Mayor – volunteers at the Regional Centre for Foreigners that permeates everything you do – but I wouldn’t played an important role in making him aware of like to think that I only stood there as the Mayor ‘the war’. They also brought him into contact with of Rotterdam. I wanted to be there primarily as an The Hague branch of the 4 and 5 May Committee. individual. And I wanted to be able to say things ‘The Centre encouraged me and other Moroccans to as an individual. It was a speech by this man in this take an active part in the commemoration. I would place on this particular subject. In any case, it dealt go with them to the Houtzagerij Community Centre with something I feel strongly about. in Hobbemastraat in The Hague. I also went to the commemoration at Parallelweg, where groups of The Mayor of Rotterdam looks at the Second World people had been executed by the Germans. War from a rational and sociological viewpoint and makes a number of sharp analyses. He has noticed Gradually I came to understand the significance of that as time goes by, the image of ‘the war’ remains the Second World War.’ Aboutaleb watched a lot the same. The starvation of civilians is a universal of ‘amazingly good’ documentaries and films about image, the face of war. Aboutaleb recalls three the war. He also talked about it with his friends and examples: the man behind barbed wire in Bosnia heard about what their families had gone through. with his bare, emaciated torso. An image burned

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 6 into our collective memory. ‘You could count his was wrong, he said, ‘Now I understand that if I had ribs’. A more recent image: ‘A man lying in bed, been alive then, I might not have survived. My eyes his body completely wasted, in the beleaguered would have been the wrong colour.’ That’s how he Syrian city of Madaya’. And thirdly: ‘The picture of saw it: killed because your eyes are the wrong colour. emaciated Jews behind the fence at the liberation of Or you can be murdered because your religion is not Auschwitz. The ribs, again it’s those ribs, a horrifying ‘pure’ enough for the people in power. Look at IS. image. The sheer scale and purpose of the Second Any religious beliefs that deviate from that held by IS, World War is beyond comparison. It is the story of a are forbidden. Either you convert on the spot, or pay mentally ill man who rose to power in a democracy.’ more taxes, or leave the area. If you don’t, you die.’

Does the idea of war increase the burden Why do you make the comparison between of responsibility on you as a politician? IS and the Nazis? ‘The difference between me and the average citizen ‘Because we once said to each other, ‘We never is that I carry a measure of responsibility. The fact want another Auschwitz’. It is the same type of that I am now responsible for taking in people system. You’re different, so you must die. Or, from around the world who come to our city as you’re different so you are the source of all evil. refugees is a concrete manifestation of a worldwide Not because you’ve actually caused any evil but problem. I try to deal with it as best I can. As mayor simply because you’re different, so you don’t of Rotterdam, I have always been interested in deserve to live. You don’t belong on the territory hearing the most poignant stories about the war.’ I have marked out. For Hitler, that was more or Then Aboutaleb moves on to the delicate subject less the whole earth, but in essence, it is the same. of collaboration. ‘I find it really hard to understand I see things happening in Syria that make me think how people born and brought up in the Netherlands of the promise made by the civilized world when could join forces with the Germans or volunteer for it said, ‘Auschwitz, never again.’’ the SS. Your country is overrun by an enemy that deliberately seeks out one particular social group – ABOUT AHMED ABOUTALEB Jewish people – in order to eliminate them, and you Ahmed Aboutaleb (1961) is married and has three help them do it. I can’t get my head round that. It daughters and a son. He is Mayor of Rotterdam. goes against all my instincts.’ As a Dutch Labour Party politician (PvdA), he was a member of Amsterdam City Council responsible for This subject clearly affects you but in the Education (2004-2007), and has held the position of Netherlands it is still taboo. State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment. ‘Absolutely, but it is very important to talk about it. Aboutaleb emigrated to the Netherlands at the Last May, there were two ladies here who told me age of fifteen. He rose via the standard route how they had survived the war. One of them said from lower to higher secondary technical school her mother was betrayed at Katendrecht when she to higher professional education, specialising in left the house to buy a litre of milk and forgot to put telecommunications. He started his career in the on her coat with the Jewish star. Someone saw her media working as a reporter for the Veronica and and reported it to the Germans, earning themselves RTL News channels and became director of the five guilders in the process. That man or woman multicultural institute Forum. In 2014, he was voted profited by it but the woman who was betrayed lost ‘Dutch citizen of the year’ by the weekly magazine her life. The woman who told me that never saw her Elsevier. On 4 May 2016, Aboutaleb delivered the mother again. These really personal stories affect commemoration speech at Dam Square. me deeply. I remember going to Auschwitz with a group of schoolchildren. Halfway through the visit a Interview: Leonard Ornstein, photograph: Moroccan boy started crying. When I asked him what Marc Nolte, from: NC Magazine, Spring 2016.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 7 Words can kill

At the age of 97, Betty Bausch-Polak still talks to From 1937 to 1939, I followed the Palestine pioneer school children in the Netherlands, Germany and training course in Laren and worked in the garden the United States about her experiences during the of the Berg Foundation. It was there that I met Second World War. Philip de Leeuw in the Zionist youth movement and the attraction was immediate. We both wanted to In her talks, Betty Bausch warns young people become pioneers in Palestine. against discrimination and racism. Betty Bausch: He gave up his Economic studies to work on the ‘I have experienced how discriminatory words can land. As first lieutenant in the reserve, he was called lead to hatred and violence against minorities. to arms in 1938 to defend the border at Dinxperlo. That’s why we have to nip all forms of discrimination That’s why we decided to get married on 21 in the bud.’ In November 2015, she was awarded December 1939. In April 1940 tensions at the border the Bundesverdienstkreuz, the Order of Merit of increased and at the beginning of May, Philip and his the Federal Republic of Germany, for her work in men were sent to Grebbeberg.’ German schools. A blessing in disguise Growing up near Amsterdam Zoo ‘On 10 May 1940, the war broke out. Five days later, ‘My father was an accountant and my mother was the Netherlands capitulated. Philip was still alive a teacher. They were orthodox Jews, and I was the and on 15 June, he was demobilized. As a Jewish third of their four children, born in Amsterdam on prisoner of war he had to flee or go into hiding. In 4 April 1919. We lived in the Plantage neighbour- the autumn of 1940, we tried to escape to England hood, close to Amsterdam Zoo, where I went every but all the boats were full. The third boat we tried day with my sisters Juul en Lies. After training to be to board was later torpedoed with no survivors. In a kindergarten teacher, I did a year’s course in retrospect, it proved to be a blessing in disguise. Jewish religious education to please my father. We went to live in Deventer, where Philip worked After that I went to work as a supply teacher in a in the Palestine Pioneers Centre and I got a job at primary school. It wasn’t a success because my ‘de Ziele’, a horticultural enterprise in Twello. I was stories about Joseph and Benjamin in Egypt were the only girl to attend the weekly classes at the too vivid and made the children cry. After that, fruit growers school in Terwolde. The Head of the I started giving private lessons.’ school was engineer Honig. In 1942, he received three official letters ordering him to ban me from the Pioneers in Palestine school because I was Jewish. In the end, he had no ‘Hitler had already started comparing the Jews to choice. When we said goodbye, he gave me a note rats in radio broadcasts as early as 1933. Everyone saying, ‘This is our home address in Zutphen, there’ll at home would shout, ‘Betty, turn it off!’ But I already always be a place for you there!’’ thought, ‘We shouldn’t ignore what he’s saying; we should fight against it’. My sisters and I took meals The parting of the ways from my mother to German-Jewish refugees in ‘To keep us safer, Philip and I moved to a Jewish Amsterdam, and they told us terrible stories about psychiatric institution called ‘Het Apeldoornsche Nazi Germany. Bosch’ in 1942, where we worked as gardeners.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 8 In January 1943, a message arrived saying that Don’t show any fear or you’re lost the institution was to be cleared. Philip and I went ‘In 1944, Philip became the leader of an assault into hiding just in time. The following night, they group in Bilthoven. He also became secretary came and took away all the patients and half of the to Kees Boeke, the founder of the Children’s nursing staff. We walked through the dark woods to Community Workshop in Bilthoven, and was given Amersfoort, where we caught the train to Hilversum. a room in the large house where the other workers We were met by a resistance worker who gave us lived. I had a job as a maid not far away, so we saw false identity papers and two bicycles. From there, each other regularly. Every evening, I practised we had to go our separate ways and I took off my different faces in front of the mirror so that I wouldn’t wedding ring. show any fear if I was arrested, because if you did, you were lost! I also perfected my German. During Philip’s new name was Philip van Andel and mine a sabotage attempt on the railway to block the was Jo Musch. I became a maid for a rich family transport of V1 and V2 systems, Philip and two other in Laren who treated me as a subordinate. I only young men in the resistance were ambushed by managed to put up with it for two months. After the Germans. Philip managed to escape but the that, I got a job in a children’s home in the Johannes youngest was captured. He was subjected to fierce Verhulststraat in Amsterdam looking after Catholic interrogation and died of his wounds two days later. children, which meant I quickly needed to make That evening, everyone at Kees Boeke’s school their religious habits my own. One day, the children was arrested. The Gestapo took us to a house in began to sing ‘Juffrouw Jootje is geen Joodje, Bilthoven where we were interrogated. You could Juffrouw Jootje is geen Joodje.’ (‘Missy Jo is not hear the screams and the beatings from the corridor. a Jew, Missy Jo is not a Jew’: in Dutch the words They broke Philip’s teeth and glasses, but he didn’t ‘Jootje’ and ‘Joodje’ sound exactly the same). It had give anything away. I was interrogated at half past become too dangerous and I had to move again.’ eight in the morning. The chair faced away from my cruel Dutch interrogator, so that I couldn’t see Fish cutlery as a memento him. He doubted the authenticity of my identity ‘This time I got a job looking after a baby in an document. Fortunately he didn’t see how afraid I upper-floor flat on Stadhouderskade. I didn’t was. I didn’t tell him anything. Like Philip, I was then manage to persuade my parents and my brother taken to Wolvenplein prison in Utrecht.’ Jaap and his wife to go into hiding. They couldn’t believe Hitler wanted to kill Jewish people. They My most loyal comrade were arrested in a raid and taken to the camp at ‘Some of the guards in the prison were good men Westerbork. At least I could still get packages to who passed letters between us. Philip wrote that them in Westerbork by putting them in the letter box he had hardly known me a year. I owe my life to at the back of the tram. I missed Philip terribly and that letter. In his farewell letter he wrote, ‘You although I was afraid to leave the house, I plucked have always been my most loyal comrade.’ I was up the courage to cycle to Laren a few times to interrogated several times and put into solitary see him. He couldn’t go outside at all because his confinement. After a week and a half, they let me go. appearance was so obviously Jewish. In my last interrogation, the German director of the prison said, ‘Sie sind doch Judin?’ I replied, ‘That’s a After my sister Juul and her husband had been strange thing to say. No, I’m not.’ I gave absolutely arrested in a major raid, I crept back to their house in nothing away. Just before I was released, one of Sarphatistraat with the reserve key. I was shocked by the prison guards brought me letters from the other the scene in the kitchen; the remains of a half-eaten prisoners, which I hid in my shoes. Shortly after, the fish meal and their napkins evidently thrown down in Gestapo chief gave me back my purse and identity a hurry showed how they had been dragged away in papers. He said, ‘Wait a minute!’ He put out his the middle of dinner. I took the fish cutlery and my hand and said, ‘Now give me the letters. Nothing will sister’s bathrobe with me so that I had something happen to you, you can still go home!’ I laughed as tangible to remember her by.’ lightly as I could and bluffed, ‘Do you really think

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 9 I’d carry letters now I’ve been allowed to go?’ anything to do with the attack. A white cross stands He fell for it and said, ‘Okay, just go!’ At the exit at the place where they died, and I always try to gate I was so exhausted, I couldn’t walk another attend the annual memorial ceremony there.’ step. A German guard said, ‘Have they let you go?’ I burst into tears because I wanted so much to be The only expression of sympathy with Philip. The guard was unexpectedly friendly ‘After the liberation, I went to the police in and said, ‘You should get away from this awful place Amersfoort to discover where Philip’s grave was. immediately! You’re still young, you’ve got your They told me he had been buried in Veenendaal. whole life in front of you!’ He was a good man and Some time afterwards, his body was moved to the I’ll never forget him.’ war cemetery near Loenen. Nobody offered their sympathy after the war because of the sheer number Reprisals of people you would have to give it to. ‘After a couple of days I went back to the prison and found a Dutch guard who was a decent person. I In 1947, as the widow of a hero of the resistance, asked him if he would give a pair of glasses to Philip. I received a letter of condolence from Queen Wil- He said sadly, ‘He’s been taken away with Pieter.’ helmina. It was the only time I received any condo- I asked, ‘Where to?‘ He said they didn’t have any lences. In the war I lost my husband, my parents, my idea and that only the Gestapo at Maliebaan would parents in law and my older sister. My brother Jaap know.’ I cycled over there because I needed to know and sister Lies survived Bergen-Belsen. Lies was one where Philip was. I was received politely by the of the 222 Jews who were exchanged in 1944 for a highest ranking Gestapo chief, ‘Setzen Sie sich!’ He group of German Templars held in a camp in British started talking about a German who had been shot Palestine. She was able to accompany them because near Veenendaal and about reprisals. He went over she was a nurse. Jaap lived to be 102 and Lies is to a cupboard on the wall and took something out. now 94. I still visit her regularly in Israel. In December Then he came and stood in front of me with Philips 1981, my second husband and I went to live in Eilat. watch and wedding ring in his hand. As calmly as His health was poor as a result of the terrible things possible, I said, ‘That’s of no interest to me. I’ll go he had experienced in the camp at Amersfoort. now’, but I was dying inside. Again, I was allowed Although the exceptionally dry climate in Eilat was to just walk away. The resistance could not believe good for his health, we had only been there a year they’d let a Jewish girl go so they suspected that when he passed away. I had told them something. They refused to have anything more to do with me. Fortunately I was able I have never stopped feeling responsible for the fact to go into hiding at the same address as my sister in that I didn’t manage to persuade my parents to go law in Oegstgeest. into hiding. They resisted because so many people were dependent on them. Every day I wear my Philip was executed with five other men on 20 mother’s locket round my neck with a photograph November 1944 at a place between Rhenen and of my parents inside. It is my dearest possession.’ Veenendaal in reprisal for the attack on a German soldier two days earlier. None of them had had Interview: Ellen Lock

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 10 There’s always a sea of flowers at the Dampit Memorial Philip Everaars tells of his imprisonment at the camp at Dampit in East Java.

In 1944, the Japanese in East Java were expecting own, we had to leave our house. My mother sold her an allied invasion. They had already taken away jewellery and all our household possessions to buy all KNIL soldiers as prisoners of war, and interned food and we moved to Malang. My best friend, Hans all Dutch nationals. Many of the remaining East van Leeuwen, worked there for the resistance and I Indian youth refused to sign the declaration of joined his group. Some people he knew asked me if loyalty and accept the Japanese regime. As they I would carry messages to resistance groups in and remained loyal to the Netherlands and were certain around Malang. Hans was a year older than me. We to help the allies as soon as they landed, they were had known each other since we were small and we imprisoned so that they could be re-educated. saw each other every day. I carried the messages by They were forced to do hard labour in a camp on bicycle without knowing what they contained. I hid an old coffee plantation south of Malang near the them in a pocket inside my belt.’ town of Dampit. Dampit labour camp Some fifty boys from this camp who were suspected ‘At the beginning of October 1944, the Japanese of resistance activities were subjected to torture. ordered about 250 Dutch East Indian boys to Philip Everaars was one of them. Fourteen innocent report to a purposely designed labour camp on boys were tried by a Japanese court martial and the Soember Gesing rubber and coffee plantation, sentenced to death. This dramatic incident which south of Malang near Dampit. I was one of a group took place in the final year of the Japanese occu- of 40 boys between the ages of 14 and 17 who pation is known as the Dampit Affair. Philip Everaars were taken to work there. Under heavy guard and is one of the few people left to bear witness to this without enough to eat, we had to clear the forest drama. He has always remained loyal to the memory and carry out all the hard work on the coffee and of his murdered boyhood friends from Malang. rubber plantations for more than three months. The Japanese were afraid of head lice and contagious Working for the resistance diseases so they shaved our heads first. We chopped Philip Everaars: ‘I was born in Yogyakarta on 31 July down trees and make charcoal or arang from small 1930 as the oldest son of seven children. My father blocks of wood. was chief engineer for the Government Navy. My mother was East Indian. It was my dream to go to We slept on the ground in the barracks of the former Naval school as well. When war broke out in the coffee plantation. I had no hope during that time. Dutch East Indies, we were living on the sugar cane The working days were long and many of the boys plantation of Kebon Agung in Malang, where my fell ill from exhaustion and malnutrition.’ father was chief technician. I was in the sixth year of primary school. I heard about the Japanese attack on The Kempetai Pearl Harbor on the Radio. My father had to report After a few weeks, following a fire in the Dampit to the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL). camp, the Japanese secret police known as the We didn’t see him again for the duration of the war. Kempetai came to interrogate us. They believed we Because my mother didn’t have any income of her had started the fire to send light signals for allied

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 11 aircraft. They arrested fifty boys from our group on me and they still wanted a lot more information. I suspicion of resistance activities. At the beginning of didn’t admit to anything. They read out the names February 1944, I had just started work for a removal of the other boys and watched to see how I would company back in Malang when I was arrested by two react, but my mind was completely absent. A guard people from the Political Information Service (PID). put a revolver to my temple and said in Indonesian They arrived at my home on a motor bike and side- “Sign the confession or I’ll pull the trigger!” I was so car to arrest and take me to the police headquarters far gone, I said, “Just shoot me and it’ll all be over! in Malang. They put me in a cell with Carly de Roy You’ll kill me whether I sign or not!” But he didn’t. van Zuydewijn whom I knew by sight from Malang. When I was taken back to the cell block after an There were also two Chinese, also suspected of interrogation, one of the guards would sometimes political activity, and four Indonesian criminals. let me sit on a bench outside the cell to get some fresh air. He was the only one who showed any Carly advised me on what to do when I was tortured sympathy, maybe because I was so young.’ during the interrogations. He said they would stand me on a stool and tie my arms to a pulley behind Liberated my back. “When you see the guard’s foot coming to ‘We heard about the atom bombs on Hiroshima and kick the stool away from under you, tense your arm Nagasaki through the loudspeakers in the corridors. muscles so that you can counter it”, he said. I am The liberation arrived just in time; two months later still grateful to him for that tip. I was interrogated and I would already have been beheaded. At the at length five times at the police station, with one end of August, I was taken from my cell thinking of the guards beating me and the other looking on. I would be interrogated again or transferred to I had my nose broken by the Political Information Lowokwaru prison. But a policeman told me that the Service. I was also strung up with my arms behind war was over and I could go home. They gave me my back. Six of the boys succumbed under back my shoes and belt. During the Bersiap period, interrogation. They didn’t spare the whip and I we were taken in trucks to the women’s camp in also had my first experience of electric shocks and Malang, and then by train to Batavia, where they cigarette burns. I tried to switch my mind off and de-loused us with DDT powder. We were given tins let everything wash over me. Twice, I was taken to of corned beef, delicious white bread, eggs, bananas Lowokwaru prison and interrogated there before and oranges. My hands and arms were covered in being returned to the prison cell at Malang.’ eczema, but with medical treatment it was gone within two days. I remember hearing good jazz music The Japanese court martial in Malang for the first time in Batavia. After the liberation, I was ‘After six months of coercive interrogations with a completely exhausted and it was weeks before I had great deal of torture and twenty ‘confessions’, fifty any strength at all.’ of us appeared before a Japanese court martial on 4 June 1945. The court martial was from Batavia, Reunited but on this occasion the hearing was held in the ‘It wasn’t until a year after the liberation that I found Council of State building in Malang. The interpreter my parents again. Someone told me that there was was so bad that we couldn’t understand a word. a person with the same name as me on a ship in We were taken there very early in the morning, the port of Surabaya. I ran up the gangplank and straight from our beds, without being allowed to saw my father on deck, completely emaciated. He go to the toilet. As a consequence, some of the simply held out his hand and said, “Well, I survived boys urinated on the floor at the court martial, and so did you!’ After he had been made a prisoner which the Japanese regarded as an act of sabotage. of war in Malang, they had taken him via Bandung Fourteen boys were blindfolded and led away and to the Japanese prisoner of war camp at Changi beheaded along with seventeen Javanese, Chinese in Singapore. He didn’t tell me anything about and Ambonese prisoners. After the war, their bodies his time in the camp and I said nothing about were discovered in a mass grave in Pujon in the what I had been through. I was surprised to see mountains above Malang. They hadn’t finished with my father suddenly smoking cigarettes. He took

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 12 me to Singapore where they gave us a wonderful and I said “Good idea!” All the survivors of the reception. They supplied us with new military Dampit affair were terribly disillusioned when the ten clothing and I joined a recovery class. Being reunited Japanese guards and appalling war criminals who with my mother was more problematic. I very much had inflicted such torture on us were taken back to wanted to see my brothers and sisters again but I Japan a couple of years after the war and allowed had been by myself for so long, I was keen to guard to walk free soon after. That’s not justice! We also my independence. My mother and I embraced each felt it was a shame that there was so little attention other, but I couldn’t really talk to her either. My paid to our story.’ eldest sister died shortly after the war. Surrounded by my brothers and sisters, I felt estranged and A sea of flowers lonely, because I couldn’t explain to them everything ‘We placed an advertisement together in the that had happened to me. Everyone kept their East Indies monthly ‘Moesson’ (Monsoon) inviting suffering to themselves.’ ex-Dampitters to respond, and a great many of our former fellow-prisoners did. As a group, we No justice set up the ‘Strafcamp Dampit Foundation’ and ‘Some time ago, I travelled to Indonesia with my commissioned a written historical account of all that two brothers in law. One of the sights we visited had taken place there. We also wanted to erect was Kembang Kuning (Yellow Flower) cemetery in a memorial at Bronbeek. Both the history and the Surabaya, where the remains of the 14 victims of the memorial were eventually realized. In the grounds Dampit affair were laid to rest in 1951. My boyhood of the Bronbeek Museum and Military Home near friend Hans van Leeuwen is also buried there. He Arnhem, the Dampit Memorial was unveiled on 19 suffered severe interrogation and torture in prison October 2001, in memory of all those who were and, according to the Red Cross, he died from illness imprisoned at the camp. The memorial is a bronze and malnutrition on 23 August 1945. I always lay sculpture of a prisoner on a granite plinth engraved flowers on those graves. with the words, ‘Strafcamp Dampit 1944-1945’ and ‘In memory of all those who suffered during the The first person I could talk to about all of this was Dampit affair.’ My wife and I attend the reunion in Chris van der Ven, whose experiences had been Bronbeek every year. At the Dampit Memorial, similar to mine. We met each other at a gathering there is always a sea of flowers. at Bronbeek and we clicked immediately. Chris said, “We should organize a Dampit reunion some time” Interview: Ellen Lock

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 13 The Backpay benefit scheme

The aim of the Backpay scheme is to provide might qualify can also submit a claim. To date, we definitive moral compensation for persons still alive have received several hundred claims and more than 70 years after Liberation, who were civil servants or 400 people have received the one-off payment of KNIL soldiers in the service of the Dutch-East Indies 25,000 euro under the Backpay scheme. government during the war, and who received little or no salary during those years. Their heirs can only Providing information qualify for the payment if the person concerned Notices about the Backpay scheme were published died on or after 15 August 2015. in newspapers and magazines read mainly by people with an East Indies background in the Netherlands Moral compensation and abroad. The reactions that the SVB has received, During the period of the Japanese occupation, however, are mixed. In particular, the surviving KNIL soldiers and civil servants who were in the relatives of KNIL soldiers or civil servants who passed service of the Dutch-East Indies government before away before 15 August 2015 are disappointed at the capitulation on 8 March 1942 received little or being excluded from the scheme. none of the salary they were entitled to. The arrears due to them are known as Backpay. Although the An information leaflet and claim form can be State of the Netherlands could not be held legally downloaded from our website at www.svb.nl/wvo, responsible for claims against the Dutch-East Indies or obtained from the Sociale Verzekeringsbank, government, the issue of Backpay has for many Department V&O, Postbus 9575, 2300 RB Leiden, years been a subject of discussion between East the Netherlands, telephone number Indies interest groups and the Dutch government. +31 71 5356888, e-mail: [email protected] At the end of 2015, the State Secretary for Health, Welfare and Sport, Martin van Rijn, decided in The Backpay Advisory Committee consultation with the Indisch Platform to provide The Backpay Advisory Committee was set up at the moral compensation for those who were still alive beginning of March 2016. The Committee provides in the form of the Backpay benefit scheme. Details the SVB with advice in its assessment of individual about the scheme and who would qualify for it were claims if it is unsure whether it has reached the included in the March 2016 edition of Aanspraak. correct decision on the basis of the information available. The SVB also asks for advice if the claimant Research for the implementation invokes the hardship clause under the Backpay of the Backpay scheme Scheme. The hardship clause allows the minister The implementation of the scheme is progressing to apply the scheme in exceptional cases where well. As those who can qualify for Backpay are now exclusion would otherwise lead to a situation that aged 90 or over, more than 3,500 persons who were could be regarded as severely unfair. 16 or older at the time of the KNIL capitulation have already been assessed for entitlement to Backpay This decision is taken on behalf of the Minister for since the end of 2015. A team of SVB staff have Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) by the Chair of the searched through a number of different archives to Executive Board of the Sociale Verzekeringsbank, find evidence of employment. People who think they after the Committee has advised on the matter.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 14 Composition of the Committee in Amsterdam in 1988. From 1989 to 2013, she was In forming the committee, the Sociale Verzekerings- associated with the NIOD, first as Head of the Dutch bank looked to appoint a Chair with administrative East Indies division, and from 1996, as director of expertise, and Members with extensive historical Collections and Services. She is the author of several knowledge. It was considered essential that the Chair articles on Japanese occupation policy. Her study of and the members should have both knowledge of the history of the application and implementation of and affinity with the Backpay issue. The members schemes for war victims (‘Op zoek naar grenzen’) was sit on the Committee as individuals rather than as published in 2010. representatives of an organisation. The background for each member of the committee is as follows: Anton Lutter (1964) belongs to the second generation of a family that lived through the Second The Chair, Erry Stoové (1947), was born in Surabaya World War in the Dutch East Indies. In 1999, he and is a former Chair of the Board of Directors of the became a member of the Indisch Platform, serving Sociale Verzekeringsbank. Since 1995, he has held as its Vice Chair from 2010 until recently. As a a number of administrative positions in East Indies member of the delegation appointed to carry out organizations, for example, as Chair of the Pelita negotiations with the Dutch government, he was Foundation and Chair of the East Indies Memorial instrumental in the formation of the Het Gebaar Centre at Bronbeek. Since 15 October 2015, he has Foundation and, more recently, the Backpay scheme. been Chair of the 15 August 1945 Commemoration In 2007 he undertook an educational journey to the Foundation. Bersiap camps on Java and Sumatra with the late Herman Bussemaker, whose research results were Elly Touwen-Bouwsma (1948) received a doctorate incorporated into an illustrated atlas of the in historical anthropology from the Vrije Universiteit Bersiap camps.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 15 Questions and answers

Years ago, I was told I was eligible for an AOR We belong to an association for people of a certain benefit but I didn’t receive anything because my age who come together socially. Many of our income was too high. Since then, my income has members lived through the war but are not aware dropped considerably. Can I be assessed again of your benefit schemes. Would it be possible for to see whether I can receive the AOR now? someone to come and talk to us about them? If your income has gone down, or if it has not been Each year, our representatives attend more than index-linked for many years, you can apply for a 50 meetings in the Netherlands organised by or for reassessment of your benefit under the General victims of war. Their task is to provide information War Injuries Scheme for Indonesia (AOR). We will and answer questions about what the schemes for then make a new calculation based on your current former members of the resistance and victims of war income. In fact, reassessments can be requested have to offer. They can also provide consultation for any of the schemes for former members of the sessions. If you let our V&O department know the resistance and victims of war. date and place of your meeting, they can arrange a time with you for an information session. You Last year I was awarded reimbursement for can reach them on our general telephone number a pair of orthopaedic shoes but I forgot to send +31 71 5356888. in the bill. Can I still submit it? Yes you can. The time limit for submitting bills is I read on your website that the 2015 annual report five years from the date of the decision awarding of the Pension and Benefit Board is now available. reimbursement. This is based on the legal principle Can I receive a copy by post? that claims against the Dutch state expire after The Pension and Benefit Board has decided that a maximum of five years. In other words, we can the annual report will no longer be published in only refuse to reimburse you for the cost of your print, but available as a download from our website. orthopaedic shoes if you submit the bill more than Any questions concerning the annual report can be five years after the date of our decision. addressed to the editorial office of Aanspraak.

My father was a soldier in the KNIL. He died in 2011. Can I qualify for the Backpay scheme as his heir? The Backpay scheme only aims to provide moral compensation for potential beneficiaries who were still alive on or after 15 August 2015. It is not possible to award Backpay if the person concerned died before that date. Only if the former government civil servant or KNIL soldier concerned passed away on or after 15 August 2015 can the payment be awarded to the heirs on the basis of a certificate of inheritance.

Aanspraak - June 2016 - 16