The footsteps of my father in WWII in the Dutch East-Indies

Recently two new sites have been released that may help to get more information about the war in the Dutch East-Indies and the prisoner of war camps. I was born in the Dutch East-Indies just after WWII and my father was a prisoner of war.

The sites are www.indieinoorlog.nl and www.indischekamparchieven.nl. Both sites are in Dutch and English.

My father did not tell me much about his POW years. Actually I did not ask. If you do not know you cannot ask. I heard from him some things about Atjeh Party and Pakan Baroe. We lived in Medan. I tested these sites to get a better understanding what happened in those years to those who lived and worked in the Medan area during the war from 1942 until 1945.

Each site was visited with the search phrases “Atjeh” and/or “Pakan Baroe” or I used the website’s navigation.

1. website www.indieinoorlog.nl.

With a single portal there is now a wealth of information available about the former Dutch colony during the years of the Japanese occupation and its aftermath.

After a couple of attempts with a direct search, Pakan Baroe will produce a hitlist with 141 hits that include 109 photo’s, 4 text, 7 audiovisual and 1 map or aerial photo. From the result it  is not immediately clear what the information will give you. Clicking items on the list, for example aerial photo, will link you to a secondary website www.beeldbankwo2.nl. You can click the tab Search again and you have to enter again Pakan Baroe. A number of pictures and drawings were shown that were related to Pakan Baroe. An easy and successful search this time. It was a bit confusing though since you are rerouted to a different application with its own user interface without any warning.

My impression is that the website indieinoorlog.nl is a good site as a portal. I assume that all the underlying database indexes have been consolidated and re-indexed so you will immediately learn that there is some piece of information somewhere out there. To access the detailed information you have to search again either in the smaller set of databases or contact the listed organizations.

2. website www.indischekamparchieven.nl (Dutch and English)

You click on the tab Search and enter Pakan Baroe. You get a nice list with detailed descriptions of each of the camps, like camp leaders, literature. This site is not sensitive for the spelling of your search phrase. If you would enter pekanbaru (Indonesian spelling) or  pakan baru, no problems. In addition the graphical design of this website deserves a compliment. I felt immediately comfortable with the presentation. The developers have done a very nice job.

If you do not know a phrase for a direct search and instead you want to have just some sort of introduction, you can navigate to Occupation and Bersiap/By region/Sumatra. A good high level and useful description is then displayed about how the war developed in that region Sumatra.

A special section is included  Atjeh Party and Pakanbaru railway. To read this overview was very dear to me since I understood for the first time the relationship between the POW camp Glugur (my parents lived nearby) that was also dubbed Atjeh Party and the camp(s) in Pakanbaru.   In addition a special section was available Civilian camps in North Sumatra. Again this information was completely new (and dear) to me since I have an understanding now what happened to my mother and older sister.

This website is very easy to use and the information is both global and detailed. For this reason this site is recommended as the first step in your quest.

To conclude, I can only say that these two new websites are a big help and very interesting.

For the younger generation, that is interested to research the family history. But also for the generation that survived the war and now wants to search for specific details. The websites will lead to either direct information or may lead to literature or may lead to organizations that can provide assistance to help you further.