Bandoeng Camps

Overview of POW and Civioian internmetn camps in th Bandoeng area — Bandoeng Camps

About twenty Bandoeng Camps were in existence during the Pacific War. Of these by far the biggest and most important was the Tjihapit women’s and children’s camp. This camp is described in detail in the book Tjideng Reunion. Providing this overview, from its start until its final end in May- June 1945, was made difficult by the lack of coherent documentation. The author was able to interview a number of camp survivors and gained access to unpublished diary fragments and one diary, kept for most of the camps existence by a teen age girl as well as a fragment of the list of internees.

Even less information is available for the other Bandoeng Camps. No lists of names of internees have for instance survived. Their inmates were gradually absorbed by the Tjihapit camp in the case of women and children, while the men and boys, ten years and over were dispatched to Tjimahi , the garrison town ten km west of Bandoeng.

Tjihapit

Tjihapit was the biggest of the Bandoeng Camps for Women and Children in South East Asia. It began as a suburb in northeast Bandoeng ( today’s Bandung) from where all non-Europeans were evicted at short notice.Â From the Bandoeng address book it is possible to obtain an impression of the number of families affected and their likely ethnic composition. The term “non European” at this stage meant anyone with clear Allied, family composition. Gradually family members with Axis connections, Jews , and Eurasians got interned here. With time the density of home occupancy grew to 30 persons per single family dwelling.

The peak number of internees is estimated at about 14,000. During the early stages of occupation older European men who had missed the initial round up along with female and child family members were herded together into Tjihapit. Periodically until about early 1944 old men and teenage boys were removed, but after October 1944 a camp liquidation process was started, with women and children transported to various other camps in group of about 600.

This process was accompanied by very strict control over personal possessions. Virtually all personal documentation such as passports and birth certificates were lost, and the amount of personal possessions that could betaken along was limited to 20 Kg, including such household items as eating dishes and cups . The destination and purpose of this movement of people was never made clear and it was widely rumored that we would all be sent to the jungles of Borneo to fend for ourselves.

The graph depicts “net population” to factor out the removal of older men and boys between the ages of ten and 17. The peak population between May 1944 and October 1944 occurred when two other internment camps in Bandoeng -Karees and Bloemenkamp, ere evacuated .

At the end of the war most of the interned civilian men were located in Tjimahi, 16 km west of Bandoeng and the women were imprisoned either in the Batavia ( Jakarta ) area or in mid-Java.

Bandoeng Camps

On the accompanying map are indicated the location of some principal additional Bandung camps as listed in the Geillustreerde Atlas van de Japansche Kampen in Nederlandsch Indie 1942-1945 (Asia Maior, Nov 2000). These camps are mentioned in the book, Tjideng Reunion, in the context of describing the internment process that the Japanese army implemented after March 1942.

15de Bat. (D): Initially housed POWs and thereafter civilian men and boys

Bloemenkamp: This was the south western extension of Tjihapit, housing women and children until Dec 1944 when they were moved to Tjihapit. Afterwards the camp housed boys.

LOG (F): Before the war this had been a borstal. It housed in succession , POWs, civilian men, and after April 1944, once again POWs after the civilians had been moved to Tjimahi. Laurens van der Post describes life in this camp, somewhat embellished with respect to his own role , during the final months of the occupation.

Karees (M): This camp served for a while to accommodate families where the men were deemed to provide essential services for the administration of Bandung. By December 1944 The men, boys, women and children had been moved to separate camps.

Stella Maris (N): This camp located, in a convent, initially was used to accommodate Eurasian and Asian men of questionable loyalty to the new regime. It was cleared by January 1945 with the men being sent to other civilian men’s camps

All told there were some 20 Bandoeng camps , most of them used during the initial phases of de-europeanization drive of the Japanese army. A brief description of the population leadership and military supervision can be found in the the Kamp Atlas.

28 Responses to "Bandoeng Camps"

Tjihapit Camp - TJIDENG REUNION says:

September 7, 2016 at 7:54 pm

[…] Camp was the biggest of the Bandoeng Camps for Women and Children in South East Asia.Â Â The book Tjideng Reunion provides the most […]
Bandung, Paris of Java - TJIDENG REUNION says:

November 5, 2016 at 4:14 pm

[…] that overtook this city after the capitulation by the Netherlands East Indies army (KNIL) and the incarceration of the considerable number of European and Europeanized inhabitants of this […]
Barbara says:

December 1, 2017 at 2:19 pm

My mother was in Tjihapit with her mother and 3 siblings. My grandfather was a POW. I have MANY artifacts in my house from this period. Dog tags, papers in both Bahasa and Dutch. My family repatriated in 1950, when the Dutch and the Belanda-Indo had to leave.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

December 16, 2017 at 8:29 pm

Hello Barbara,
thank you for your comment. You are aware that I have some name lists from Tjihapit, as well as the Bandoeng addres book. Some folk are curious to obtain information. I will shortly post a revised copy of the address book on my website.
Richard Gillatt says:

May 15, 2018 at 9:22 am

My father was Japanese prisoner of war at Cycle Camp Batavia. In his memoirs he also talks about Bandoeng Camp.
He has written a long story of his years 1942 to 1945 as a P.O.W.
He mentions working at Tasik Malaja Airfield and Djockakarta Airfield.
Also working at Sorabaja.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

April 14, 2019 at 10:00 am

Did your father go as a Dutch “volunteer”from South Africa?
There were about three hundred of them ( my parents included). I am still trying to nail down the list
Boudewyn
Hellena Hanssen says:

May 7, 2019 at 7:37 pm

My mother and grandmother (who have since passed on) were in a Bandoeng Camp and while they were moved on from Bandoeng they remained interned together during the war. All of our grandmother’s forebears were of Asian descent but she herself and my mother had married Dutch military men. Can anyone tell us if my mother and grandmother would have been placed within the Eurasian or Dutch section of internment camps.
Many thanks Hellena
Boudewyn van Oort says:

May 15, 2019 at 7:25 pm

The position of the Eurasian community was difficult. The internment policies implemented by the Japanese were designed to eliminate Europeans from Asian soil, but ran into a hug definitional problem: How do you define “European ” or “Asian”? Jews were initially called “Asian”. There were many people, partly Dutch, partly Indonesian, and these people tried to exercise choice, whether or not to be interned, by claiming Asian heritage. In the beginning they sought to stay out in this way, but as the economy collapsed and society outside of the camps disintegrated, with increasing violence they increasingly sought better security in the camps.
Marijke Lewis- v d Zeyde says:

May 17, 2019 at 8:14 am

Hi Boudewyn

My father, Tino van der Zeyde, born 19 Dec 1917 in A’dam – was one of the volunteers who went to Indonesia on the Boissevan, leaving Pretoria, SA, on 23 May 1940. He and his parents were living in Pretoria at the time. He served mainly in Borneo. He ended his war service as a Lt. in camp Tjideng as a military police, guarding the remaining women and children, where he met my mother. They arrived in SA in Feb 1946 and were married in April 1946. He lived in different countries, Holland, Germany, South Africa but died at age 90 on 6 Feb 2009 in Groningen. I have edited his autobiography,`Tino van der Zeyde. Solider, Family man, Chemical Engineer’ published by NISC in Grahamstown in 2015. Regards Marijke Lewis .
Edith Steffers says:

December 6, 2019 at 9:35 pm

My father (Hermanus Theodore STEFFERS) was in the camp 15 Bat Bandoeng from the age of 11years till 15years and was separated from his mother ,father and 2 sisters. His father was moved to another camp for he worked for Shell and his mother and 2 sisters were also in a different camp. He did not know whether his family was alive or dead. My father returned to Holland on August 31 1946 on the SS Tegeberg.
My father has passed now and I am only learning about these horrific times in my fathers life.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

December 10, 2019 at 4:19 pm

Hello Edith,
These stories are terrible. Three days ago I met Andrew Loman, English Professor at Memorial University in St John’s Newfoundland, on a visit to Victoria (Canada- where I live) who is writing a story about his father- much in common with yours. Loman ended up in Ambarawa as an eleven year old, his mother, already seriously ill died in 1944, and after the war, only made contact with an older brother in Holland and his father, after also having been interned as a fifteen year old by the Indonesian nationalists in Yogyakarta. Talk about trauma.
Peter Mihalic says:

December 14, 2019 at 7:23 am

Hi. My mother Helena “Lenny” Loomans was born in Bandung in 1937. She is still 82 now and still alive. She spent years in a camp in Bandung which i am guessing was Tjihapit. She doesn’t remember much as she was very young then but she remembers her mother working for the Red Cross. This is the reason she says they survived. Her father and 3 brothers (all deceased) were placed somewhere else (unknown). If anyone has any knowledge, information or photos regarding my mother and her camp placement we would love to know.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

December 19, 2019 at 10:57 am

Hello Peter,
I will consult my records and reply.
My book, Tjideng Reunion, describes what happened in the Tjihapit camp , and why certain things happened. I spent three years in that camp, same generation as your mom, and I only spent six months in Tjideng. When I wrote my book I was struggling to give it a name, and in the end referred to Tjideng, mainly because of its notoriety. Tjihapit was the biggest of the camps, but its history was wiped out by the Japanese army. Tjihapit for most of its internees became a black hole- a vacuum in their past, a gap in their memory and therefore their personality.
Was Brigadier J.F. Loomans her father? This officer lived in Bandung before the war. If that was the case her mother would have been destitute in Tjihapit in a regime where internees were expected to buy their own food, and not be a burden on the Japanese government. The Looman family probably left Bandung before Christmas 1944, because the name does not exist in the surviving Tjihapit name registry. Nor can I find a trace in the Jakarta camps (Tjideng, Adek), so I suspects the family was moved to central Java- Ambarawa. Many went there. I found a J. Looman-Keyser in Lampersari, but I am not aware of internee movement between Bandung and that ghastly place.
Mia says:

December 29, 2019 at 5:10 pm

Hii, i just had a history tour in Bandoeng and including about the kamps.

May i know where can i buy your book “tjideng reunion” in Indonesia? Or maybe i could get a copy from you (softcopy or hardcopy is fine) cause im really interested about this story.

Grateful if you could email me at melinamia.lesmana@gmail.com.

Thank you.
Erik Zimmerman says:

January 8, 2020 at 8:07 pm

My mother Dorothea Henny Lindeboom (Zimmerman) was interned in Bandung camp 2602 on April 13, 1943. She was prisoner 10823. Over the next two years she stayed in Bandung, Cihapit and Banjubiru. She has recorded her mother’s war diary. A fascinating story of survival. My notes from our conversations are below.

The government of Singapore ordered an evacuation of all women and children (all girls and boys to age 12) via the Rotterdam Lloyd shipping company, Kota Indan vessel, at 10 p.m., leaving for Indonesia. The ship arrived in Jakarta and the family was met by Aunt Rietje and Oom Hans in Batavia (Jakarta), initially staying at their house prior to moving to Bandung which was considered safer, after receiving vaccinations. The men, including Bob, on March 5, 1942 joined the army in an attempt to defend Bandung. The Japanese captured and interned the women before the men arrived and this remained in place for almost a year.

Internship in Bandung

On April 13, 1943 Mum was moved into camp 2602 (?) with 70 others and all prisoners were stamped (?). Mum, at age 3 years and 8 months was prisoner of war, prisoner 10823, in Java. This was the first of three camps: Bandung, Cihapit and Banjubiru.

Initially the camp was very exciting with so many other children, makeshift kindergarten and singing songs and Mum was the oldest of the children. Mum says “I think that has remained in me, looking after the younger children and looking after my mother. My mother was very sick twice (Hepatitis, Malaria) and I remember being very worried about what would happen if she died”. Food was available via a market however everything was very expensive. After 4 months things became much tougher; people became ill, theft became more common. A Japanese soldier ‘Happy’ kept the family alive. The Dutch were seen as ‘filth’ by the Japanese in the same way as the Nazi’s had declared the Jews. However many soldiers had left their own families behind and felt sympathetic. Some of them were protective and looked after the children. Mum’s brother Kees was very good at stealing from the kitchen. Mum and her brother looked after the children and the children founds ways to look after their mother.

This set in play a mindset of looking after family and friends. It was initially born out of necessity to stay alive.
Beebs diary entry of 2/10/1944 summarises the trip to the final camp – Banjubiru, and Mum has vivid memories of the trip “The Journey to Banjubiru was horrific; we’ll never forget it. We were loaded into buses and taken to platforms and were then packed into trains shoulder to shoulder with small children who screamed and fought all the way. We spent two nights and a day on hard benches of the 3rd class compartments. No one could get to the toilets because we tried to sleep in the corridors even though these were filthy. Many children and women soiled themselves; dysentery galore. Finally we arrived at about 5 a.m. at Ambarawa. We were then loaded into open lorries like animals. It was icy cold”

Japanese Surrender

Japan surrendered in World War 2 on August 15th 1945 and formally signed the surrender on September 2. The Dutch became prisoners of the Indonesian Republic (Soekarno Freedom Fighters) and were moved out of camps into the centre of the provincial city of Surabaya. They were not allowed to leave the building and were not provided with any explanation of what was happening. British, Australian and Dutch troops tried unsuccessfully to capture Surabaya. Mum remembered heavy cannon fire at night. Beebs diary describes the situation “we slept in underground shelters made with beds, tables and mattresses. The children were not coping with the heat and humidity and suffered from prickly heat rashes all over their body”. “During the day we sometimes walked around the walled garden until we realized that this was also extremely dangerous. I left with a group of children and suddenly a grenade was thrown over the wall. It exploded and an Indonesian man who was grooming us was hit as well as the horse. Both fell down dead. They were forced to wave at gunpoint to passing British troops. Aeroplanes flew low overhead and the situation was highly unstable.

Escape to Sugar Plantation

That night they were moved to empty houses and, later, they were all set on fire. Beebs writes in her diary “Unfortunately I had so much trouble waking my two children and carrying them that I left the mosquito net, a bag and last items of my jewellery behind. Thus we began the worst journey I have ever made, losing the chance of reunification with my husband from whom I’d received a message that he was still alive. For the second time my children and I; this time as hostages and prisoners transported away from safety. We formed a long line of people and were an easy target to be shot at many times. During the day aeroplanes flew low overhead. Mum comments “Gee I remember those aeroplanes and when I was in Tokyo they were there in the hanger and it was the most extraordinary feeling because the last time I had seen them was flying over our heads. That day I was there (in Tokyo for the reconciliation)” Beebs diary continues “In desperation I realized that there was only one thing to do. I had to keep going in order to get out. The first night the three of us slept on a table in a market. Early the next morning a line of refugees moved towards the trains and because the children could now walk independently and faster we caught the first train. The second train was bombed and most people were killed.” The diary continues “The next day I contracted dysentery and if my little daughter had not helped me up every time I collapsed and slumped forward, we would never have reached Sumobitur, a sugar plantation 70 km south of Surabaya.”
54 Dutch women and their children escaped into the sugar plantation. There was a realization that ‘our mother was really important to our survival’. Mum comments “Everything was about helping each other” Babes would barter clothing and other items with the local Indonesians for live chickens. Beebs writes in her diary “if we didn’t have any money, they would accept clothing so that finally all I owned was a dress, some underwear and a pair of sandals. There was no medicines, no doctors, no strict hygiene, the toilets got blocked and many especially children died of dysentery” Mum comments, “if the war had gone on for another six months, they would not have survived”.

Release and Return Back to Singapore

The Red Cross negotiated a release and the families were able to enter a fully darkened train into Semarang and disinfected completely. On June 1, 1946, Mum and her family arrived back into Singapore. Mum comments “It was absolutely unbelievable, the excitement, the flowers, my father. It was partying. It was excitement, excitement, excitement”.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

January 26, 2020 at 10:27 am

Contact me at nancybou@telus.net

Sorry about the confusing email

Boudewyn van Oort, Canada
Scott Semplonius says:

February 28, 2020 at 11:10 am

My father, Uncle, Grand Father and Grand Mother where interned in Bandung in separate camps. My father who was about 8 years old and my Grand Mother in one camp and My Uncle who was 11 with my Grand Father in another camp. My Uncle told me of the internment after my father passed, he also told me that my grand mother was very ill at the end of the war and was taken away to a hospital and that my father was abandoned until nurses finally managed to reunite them a few weeks later.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

March 8, 2020 at 8:57 pm

Hello Scott, I suspect that your father and uncle spent the first year with your grandmother in the Bandung camp, and that your uncle, who was deemed to be an adult if over ten years old, was subsequently evicted. This was the standard pattern. That your uncle ended up with your grandfather was a stroke of luck.
Willem ten Wolde says:

June 20, 2021 at 8:33 am

After my father was drafted by the KNIL in Jember, we, my mother and my brother and I moved in with my mother’s oldest sister in Malang who was very sick with cancer and had five children.
That’s when the Japs drove in town.
We managed to flee to Surabaya where my father’s sister lived. My mother’s sister died there.
We subsequent were interned in Surabaya
Then we were transported by train, a terrible journey, to Semarang and put in camp Gedangan. From there we were moved again by marching to Halmaheira until the capitulation. Then we were flown to a camp in Bandung that was a previous convent with a church right along the train track that was also the demarcation line between the allied and Indonesians who tried to murder us.
I forgot the name of the camp. Maybe it was Stella Maris. From there my mother, brother and I went to Batavia where an aunt of my mother lived and who had stayed outside camps and my father came back from Burma and we were reunited.
My father’s oldest brother, who had been in civilian camps, arranged a flight for us to Surabaya because he was needed to rebuild my uncles chocolate manufacturing plant and bread plant that was deemed very important by the Dutch authorities.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

June 27, 2021 at 8:02 am

The Stella Maris convent complex was located in south west Bandung, along the Waringingweg. During the occupation the camp housed Eurasian men and boys- at first also various other Asian men. The nuns stayed there as well in a separate part of the complex. Tjihapit seems to have served as the main location for housing refugees from central and east Java. These former camps were in a terrible state of disrepair at the end of the war. Boudewyn
Liliane Parkinson Treffers says:

February 20, 2022 at 11:41 am

I am search for POW info of my dad Ferdinand (Ted) Treffers a civilian interned 1 Djakara Batavia and 2 Bandoeng. Thanks.
Boudewyn van Oort says:

March 3, 2022 at 7:23 pm

I found this in the Bandung address book ( 1941)
Trappe, H. v., Bedrijfsambt. P.T.T. Kebon Sirihweg .
Treffers, A. J., Ie Luit. Inf. E Borremeusweg
Treffers, A., Gep. Luit. Kol. der Genie F Roemervisscherweg 32.
Treffers, Mevr. L. M. — I Roemervisscherweg 32.
Treipl-Treipl, Wed. H.A.R.M., Eig. Grand Hot. Lemb. C O. Hospitaalweg 19.
One lieutenant living on Borromeus street, and it looks lile a pensioned officer and his sister(?) living on Roemervisscher way nr 32

I also found the name Treffer in the Lampersari womens and childrens camp
Treffers, I.A.
This was a ghastly place. Her name is listed on a Red Cross compilation which is incomplete

Regards Boudewyn
Asja Olga Schalekamp Hess says:

May 12, 2022 at 1:21 am

Hallo. Mijn moeder is geboren in Java in het jaar 1933. Toen ze negen was kwam ze in het bloemenkamp terecht met haar stiefmoeder. Toen ze drie was werdt ze door de mevrouw Riedee geadopteerd omdat haar ouders (indoeuropees) heel arm waren. Volgens mijn moeder zijn ze ook in kamp Grogol opgenomen en in Tjihapit. Mijn moeder is 88 jaar en leeft in Mallorca. Ik ben bezig een roman aan het schrijven, in het spaans, omdat ik hier in Spanje ben opgevoed en de hollandse schrijftaal niet zo zeer beheer als de spaanse taal. Samen met haar herinneringen en documentatie over die tijd in Indonesie hoop ik op een dag het boek te kunnen editeren, en mischien ook laten vertalen in het nederlands.
Asja Olga
Boudewyn van Oort says:

May 20, 2022 at 7:01 am

Het Bloemenkamp in Bandung was tijdeijk, en werd later toegevoegd aan het Tjihapit kamp dat ook tijdelijk was. Daarna werd iedereen overgeplaatst naar kampen in Batavia ( Tjideng, Kampong Makassar en Kramat) , de rest naar midden Java kampen (Ambarawa, Banjoe Biroe).
Groeten
Boudewijn
Natasha van Gils says:

December 1, 2022 at 11:13 am

My father Robert Johan van Gils was born in Bandung in 1936. He was in one of the camps with his mother and sister. I don’t have much information about his time there but I would love to know more.
Regards
Natasha van Gils
Boudewyn van Oort says:

December 19, 2022 at 9:45 am

Dear Natasha,
I will see what I can find . I am very much preoccupied with the matter of lasting effects of internment, and am preparing a presentation on this topic. I would be most interested in hearing what you have to say about your father.

I will contact you directly rather than via the website.
Cheers and Merry Chrsitmas
GERARD Nieuwenhuize says:

July 9, 2023 at 11:10 am

Which camp near Bandung has as unit M.P Tjiwedes ? Kind regards from Gerard Nieuwenhuize
Boudewyn van Oort says:

July 12, 2023 at 8:41 am

Hi Gerard
I will look into this puzzle. Give me time
Thanks
Bou

Bandoeng Camps

Tjihapit

Bandoeng Camps

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