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Life in internment camp was brutal and deadly Continued from page 1 11 · Friday, April 2, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com "We all have something in common, although we don't talk about it, really," she said. "It's nice to be together and know we went through it all together and we still survive." Marsman was born in the Dutch East Indies in 1930. Her father Jacob worked in a factory in the city of Surabaya, located on the Dutch colony's island province of Java. Marsman remembers her early childhood fondly and has memories of going to school and playing with other children outdoors, enjoying the country's tropical heat. These good memories, however, came to an end in 1942 when the Dutch East Indies were added to the list of territories conquered by the Japanese during the Pacific blitzkrieg. With the arrival of the Japanese, the factory Marsman's father worked in was shut down and her family was evicted from their home and permitted to take only what they could carry. This was the beginning of a mass internment that saw thousands (some estimates reach as high as 300,000) of people of Dutch decent moved into concentration camps. Initially, Marsman and her parents were moved into another home that was being shared by four other families. Each day the women and children in these families stayed behind while the Japanese took "My mom used to work at the vegetable table, cleaning the vegetables, and she would tell me that I had to be there at a certain time and go into the washroom. Then she would come to the washroom and she would always have a piece of vegetable in her bra that she would give me, a piece of potato or carrot, something." Johanna Marsman, Japanese internment camp survivor the men to work in a nearby factory. Worse was to come. "After about a year, my father had to come and get his luggage and all the men were picked up," said Marsman. "That was it. A truck came and we never saw him again." Soon after Marsman, her mother Catharina and the other women were also put on trucks. These trucks drove for hours, eventually depositing the women at a new internment camp. The camp consisted of a few city blocks that were surrounded by barbed wire and fencing. The camp was also extremely overcrowded with Marsman and her mother being housed in a convent with hundreds of other women. Marsman still has a drawing that was made of the small area her mother was able to carve out for them in the convent. The drawing shows a single mattress lying on the ground beside two suitcases with some clothing hung on a makeshift clothesline nearby. Each morning the Japanese would force all the camp's inhabitants to line up for role call. Everyone present was required to bow to the Japanese soldiers to show respect. Not doing this fast enough or even looking a soldier in the eye could result in the inmate being slapped or beaten. Marsman said she and her mother never received this kind of brutal treatment, but she remembers seeing it happen to others. The real enemy in the camp, however, was hunger. "There was no food," said Marsman. "In the morning we got something that was ...floury, I can't explain it really, and at night we got a small spoonful of rice and some vegetables in water, that was all." This inadequate diet was the order of the day in the internment camps throughout the Dutch East Indies and resulted in the deaths of as many as 10 people a day in some camps. Marsman's mother did all she could to keep her daughter from succumbing to a similar fate. "My mom used to work at the vegetable table, cleaning the vegetables, and she would tell me that I had to be there at a certain time and go into the washroom," said Marsman. "Then she would come to the washroom and she would always have a piece of vegetable in her bra that she would give me, a piece of potato or carrot, something." Despite these efforts Marsman developed Beriberi, a nervous system ailment caused by the insufficient diet. This disease was one of the main causes of death in the camps. Fortunately for Marsman, the war in the Pacific ended in time for her to receive proper medical care. With the end of the war, Marsman began to see Allied planes flying overhead, dropping food and supplies to the war-weary nation. "We were quite fortunate," said Marsman. "We survived." Marsman eventually learned that her father had died in another camp in 1944. To this day, she still does not know how he died. Marsman married, immigrated to Canada and began a new life becoming a mother and grandmother. On April 10, Marsman will gather with other survivors of the Dutch internment to remember people like her father who were not as fortunate. The event will start at 11 a.m. and continue until 3 p.m.