The information on this website is derived mainly from the two-volume Geïllustreerde atlas van de Japanse kampen in Nederlands-Indië 1942-1945 (Illustrated atlas of Japanese camps in the Netherlands East Indies 1942-1945) by J. van Dulm, W.J. Krijgsveld, H.J. Legemaate, H.A.M. Liesker and G. Weijers. In addition we gratefully utilized the websites of H. Beekhuis, drawing from the results of many years of research by former internees, to which many other former internees contributed.

Because the Japanese destroyed most of the camp records in late summer of 1945, information about the camps must be drawn from later witness statements, reports, diaries and correspondence of ex-internees. Particularly numbers - the volume of transports, the number of internees in a camp at any given moment, number of deaths - must be reconstructed on the basis of incomplete and sometimes contradictory sources. Furthermore it is not always known exactly from which date and to which date a camp existed. When the information is uncertain, it is put in square brackets.

The information about each camp consists of a standardized specification of location, period of existence, category of internees, the names of camp commander and camp leadership, nature of the accommodation, guards, maximum number of internees and number of deceased. The website is set up in such a way that information can be added in the future and that more attention can go to special circumstances, events and persons in the camps.

In the spelling of place-names, we have generally used the spelling of the Atlas van tropisch Nederland (Atlas of the tropical Netherlands), published in 1938 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society (KNAG). The search function also works for place-names in modern Indonesian spelling, the search results, however, will only contain place-names in the ‘old’ spelling.

Any additions and corrections will be gratefully received. You can use the contact form to pass on your remarks.

Images

In order to not just describe the camps in words, but also literally portray them in pictures, the image collections of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) were used. For this website drawings and photographs that give a clearer picture of the camp were selected from both collections.

The drawings were made by internees, often during their stay in a civilian or POW camp. Drawings were only included when it is clear which camp they represent. Drawings without any indication of location and portraits were not used for this website.

The photographs that were included generally date from (well) before and (just) after the Japanese occupation. We opted to include photographs from before the war to give an impression of a camp location, even though buildings may have changed between the time when the photograph was taken and after the building came to be used as a camp.

Please consult the Images page if you want to order images on this site.

Search

You will find an extensive explanation of the search options on the Search manual page.