East Indies camp archives ( Indische kamparchieven ENG )
kampen East-Indies camps
Blom Camp in Maoemere
Town:
Maoemere
District:
Flores
Region:
Lesser Soenda Islands
Location:
Maoemere is on the north coast of Flores.
function:
From 10 May 1943 to 12 September 1944 this location served as a prisoner of war camp
Other name:
Maoemere-Oost, Schuilkamp
Internees:
prisoners of war
Number of internees:
2.079
Number of deceased:
380 (all of Maoemere)
Information:
On April 25th 1943, 2,079 Dutch prisoners of war from Tjimahi left with the Tazima Maru, Tenzio Maru and Koam Maru from Soerabaja bound for Timor. On 9 May they arrived at Maoemere. They were put to work laying the Maoemere-Oost and Waioti airfields and the expansion of Maoemere City, an old Dutch airfield. The prisoners of war were housed in three camps they built themselves. The camps consisted of barracks of bamboo and atap, encircled with barbed wire. The labour camp approximately 4 kilometres east of Maoemere was named after the camp elder reserve captain L. Blom. In May the prisoners of war were moved from the Reyers Camp to the Blom Camp and 314 of them were put to work until 30 August laying a road and two assistance airports near Taliboera. At the beginning of September the prisoners of war from the Wulff Camp arrived (via the Reyers Camp) at the Blom Camp. In the first half of 1944 the majority of the prisoners of war from the Blom Camp were taken back to Soerabaja and interned in camps in Batavia. A group of 454 men remained, due to Allied actions against the airfields around Maoemere, for another month in an improvised shelter camp approximately 6 kilometres inland of Maoemere. Between the end of August and the middle of September 1944 they were taken back to Soerabaja.
Veenstra, J.H.W. e.a., Als krijgsgevangene naar de Molukken en Flores. Relaas van een Japans transport van Nederlandse en Engelse militairen 1943-1945 ('s-Gravenhage 1982) Jacobs, L., Executie van een dwangarbeid: krijgsgevangen op de Zuid-Molukken en Flores 1976) Binnerts, C., "Alles is in orde, heeren....!" Een dagboek van het eiland Flores uit het jaar 1943 (Amsterdam 1947) Jacobs, L., De 2200 van Flores. Kamp 'Y' Maoemere 1943-1944 (Den Haag [ca.1990]) Claassen, R. en J. van Grootheest, Getekend. Nederlanders in Japanse kampen (Den Haag 1995)
