They ate starch and rats, died of e

They ate starch and rats, died of exhaustion, malaria, dysentery, beri-beri and tropical ulcers. But on 15 August 1945, the same day the Japanese surrendered and the red Japanese sun finally set, the death railway from Pakan Baroe to Moeara was finished. The last spike was hammered into the railway sleeper by the Japanese themselves. A copper spike in lieu of the gold one traditionally used.



Only few of the starving survivors who had built the 220km (137.5 miles) long track through the Sumatran jungle and who were ignorant about the Japanese capitulation, witnessed the inaugural connection of the tracks constructed from the North and the South towards each other.



The Japanese occupiers drove Dutch, British, Australian and American POWs as well as Javanese slave labourers to construct the Pakan Baroe railway right through the swampy jungle of tropical Sumatra. By the end of the war it had already claimed the lives of almost seven hundred Europeans and Indo-Europeans and over eighty thousand Javanese – not including the circa eighteen hundred prisoners of war destined to work on the railway who had drowned when their transport ships the Van Waerwijck and the Junyo Maru were torpedoed by the Allies on Sumatra’s east and west coast.


Nobody will ever be able to determine exactly the number of dead among the romushas, the boys shanghaied on Java and forced into slave labour. It is evident, however, that the Japanese and their Korean accomplices considered the lives of these Javanese much less important than those of their white fellow-sufferers. The romushas did the heaviest labour. However they hardly received any food and only some medical care by exception. It is also certain that the remains of tens of thousands of these unknown Javanese rest along the tracks of the death railway, on which no train would ever run after September 1945. The bridges were washed away and miles of track were pillaged and sold as scrap. What has been left is slowly rusting away in the quiet black bog water of the impenetrable Sumatran jungle.



With the Japanese ceasefire on 15 August 1945 the curtain fell for the Pakan Baroe tragedy. Historians could now start taking stock of the most monstrous war of all times. However, for some mysterious reason which is unknow until today, the immense drama of the railroad from Pakan Baroe to Moeara ran into oblivion. The hopeless slogging of thousands of starved, virtually naked forced labourers in a green hell full of snakes, bloodsuckers and – even worse – swarms of mosquitoes, remained unknown. Their indescribable suffering, the sadistic violence of Korean and Japanese guards and the needless deaths of about 82,000 people only remained etched into the hearts and minds of the survivors.



Through his book 'The Sumatra Railroad', author and historian Henk Hovinga has preserved this hardly known Pakan Baroe drama and given it a well deserved place in the history of the Second World War.

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

Mereka makan pati dan tikus, meninggal akibat kelelahan, malaria, disentri, beri-beri dan ulkus tropis. Tetapi pada 15 Agustus 1945, hari yang sama Jepang menyerah dan merah matahari Jepang akhirnya menetapkan, jalur kereta api kematian dari Pakan Baroe untuk Moeara selesai. Gerbong terakhir dipalu ke tidur kereta api oleh Jepang sendiri. Lonjakan tembaga sebagai pengganti emas yang secara tradisional digunakan. Hanya sedikit korban kelaparan yang telah membangun jalur panjang 220km (137.5 mil) melalui hutan Sumatera dan orang-orang bodoh tentang Kapitulasi Jepang, menyaksikan sambungan perdana lagu-lagu yang dibangun dari Utara dan Selatan terhadap satu sama lain. Pendudukan Jepang melaju Belanda, Inggris, Australia dan Amerika tahanan perang serta Jawa budak pekerja untuk membangun kereta api Pakan Baroe tepat melalui hutan rawa tropis Sumatera. Pada akhir perang itu telah merenggut nyawa orang Indo-Eropah, hampir tujuh ratus orang Eropa dan Jawa lebih dari delapan puluh ribu-tidak termasuk sekitar delapan ratus tawanan perang ditakdirkan untuk bekerja pada jalur kereta api yang telah tenggelam ketika kapal angkut mereka Van Waerwijck dan Junyo Maru ditenggelamkan oleh sekutu di Sumatera Timur dan Pantai Barat. Tak seorang pun pernah akan mampu menentukan persis jumlah mati antara romushas, anak-anak shanghaied di Jawa dan dipaksa bekerja. Hal ini jelas, bagaimanapun, bahwa Jepang dan komplotan Korea mereka dianggap kehidupan Jawa ini jauh lebih penting daripada rekan-rekan mereka putih-penderita. Romushas melakukan pekerjaan terberat. Namun mereka hampir tidak menerima makanan dan hanya beberapa perawatan medis berdasarkan pengecualian. Ianya juga pasti bahwa sisa dari puluhan ribu Jawa ini tidak diketahui beristirahat di atas lintasan kereta api kematian, di mana tidak ada kereta api akan pernah menjalankan setelah September 1945. Jembatan dibasuh dan mil dari lagu yang menjarah dan dijual sebagai memo. Apa yang telah meninggalkan adalah perlahan-lahan berkarat pergi di dalam air tenang hitam rawa hutan tak tertembus di Sumatera. Dengan gencatan senjata Jepang pada tanggal 15 Agustus 1945 tirai jatuh untuk Pakan Baroe tragedi. Sejarawan sekarang dapat mulai mengambil saham dari perang paling mengerikan sepanjang waktu. Namun, untuk beberapa alasan yang misterius yang unknow sampai saat ini, drama besar kereta api dari Pakan Baroe ke Moeara berlari ke terlupakan. Slogging putus asa ribuan kelaparan, hampir telanjang dipaksa buruh di neraka hijau penuh ular, pengisap darah dan -bahkan lebih buruk – kawanan nyamuk, tetap tidak diketahui. Penderitaan yang mereka tak terlukiskan, kekerasan sadis penjaga Korea dan Jepang dan kematian perlu sekitar 82.000 orang hanya tetap terukir ke dalam hati dan pikiran dari korban. Melalui bukunya 'The Sumatera Railroad', penulis dan sejarawan Henk Hovinga telah diawetkan Pakan Baroe drama ini hampir tidak dikenal dan diberikan tempat yang layak dalam sejarah perang dunia kedua.