Patricia Liem
2024

In this book, the well-known journalist and writer Nio Joe Lan (1904-1973) describes the years of internment during the Japanese occupation 1942-1945. The book, originally in Malay, was published for the first time in 1946, had a reprint in 2008 and appeared in Bahasa in 2024.

In April 1942, Nio and 500 other Chinese were arrested by the Japanese. They were suspected to be socially or politically active, to have ties with the Dutch government or to sympathize with China because of the raging Sino-Japanese war. Among those arrested were many journalists. Nio was interned in Bukit Duri,  Serang and in Cimahi.

In his characteristic modest way, Nio describes prison life in camp Cimahi with Dutch, British and other internees. As living conditions deteriorate, the morale is maintained as far as the camp guards allow. Making music on home-made instruments, studying and reading, goes along with hunger and deprivation. Never before has a three-and-a-half-year continuous imprisonment in Japanese internment camps been described in such detail from the Chinese perspective. It is a unique account, which is now available to Dutch readers. 

Patricia Liem obtained her PhD on the legal position of the Chinese in the Dutch East Indies 1848-1942. She is chair of the Chinese Indonesian Heritage Center (CIHC). One of her driving forces is to bring the colonial and postcolonial history of the Chinese from Indonesia closer to the public, among other things through accessible publications.