Sad News today that reminds us of an uplifting person who was a champion for all the comfort women under the Japanese during World War II. Jan Ruff – O’Herne died at the age of 96 on Monday August 19, 2019 in Adelaide, Australia. This photo of her as a young woman was taken when […]
The remains of these 3 Dutch ships are from the Battle of the Java Sea which was fought on February 27, 1942 between a hastily assembled battle group of Dutch, British, American and Australian ships led by the Dutch Admiral Karel Doorman and the overwhelming Japanese fleet steaming towards the Island of Java. It was […]
Three months ago, I exchanged e-mails with Priscilla K M regarding the fact that there is very little available in English that deals with the horrific circumstances of the Dutch-Indonesians on Java under the Japanese during WWII that I describe in “with nothing but our lives”. Priscilla is the founder of The Indo Project whose […]
Around January 1944, a number of young women were forcibly removed from our concentration camp in central Java, Camp Moentilan (Muntilan), to serve as comfort women / sex slaves. This was all hush-hush as far as we children were concerned and nobody used the word “sex”, but we had a good inkling of what was […]
A long time ago, a friend turned up unannounced for a visit at our herb farm. He carried a gallon plastic pot holding a pretty green ginger-like plant, which he called “galangal”. A gift to his wife from her Indonesian relatives, the plant had arrived as a tiny slip of a thing several months before […]
Wajang puppets swaying against the candle light like finding nemo
