Kumpulana

This book is a collection of memories of people who lived in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) when the Japanese invaded their country. Whether interned as POWs or as civilians, most spent several years (from 1942 to 1945) in Japanese concentration camps located in Indonesia, Burma (now Myanmar) or in Japan itself, and in many cases their ordeal included forced labour and torture, not to mention starvation and the resulting malnutrition and disease.


The original collection of these stories was first published in the limited edition book Kumpulana (2005) to coincide with the 60th anniversary of VJ-Day. This compilation is certainly of importance in and of itself to researchers of the history of the war in the Pacific, but the greatest personal significance has naturally been more for the survivors themselves, so that they may know that their stories will live on.


It is naturally the various authors' hope that their readers will acquire a broader view of what so many, many people lived through during the war, and one might suggest that those authors not be thought of as they were when they wrote their story — that is, as older men and women — but rather that the reader picture them as the young adult, the teenager, or indeed the very young child that they were when events took place.


When one realizes how young these survivors were at the time, through their stories perhaps some greater insight, understanding, and indeed some level of empathy might be gained as to the impact of the war on the rest of their lives.