Stories This film was made in collaboration with the War Graves Foundation, for the education of the honoured public during the National Commemoration of 15 August 1945 at Ereveld Menteng Pulo, Jakarta. Filmed on 24 July 2025, published on 15 August 2025.
On 4 May we observe two minutes' silence. Two minutes in which names are softly spoken, memories are brought to life, and emotions run high. But do we truly understand what we are commemorating? Behind every name lies a complete life—full of dreams, love, joy and ultimately deep loss. Every family left behind with an empty chair, a silence that will never be filled again. Including in our family.
On 5 May we cheer, we celebrate our freedom. The Netherlands was liberated in May 1945, but for our motherland in the East, freedom remained merely a dream for months to come. The Dutch East Indies waited in painful uncertainty until 15 August 1945, held in the grip of the Japanese Empire. Then, at last, came the moment when freedom seemed possible again—but the suffering, the pain and the loss made themselves felt for a long time afterwards.
This page is dedicated to the war victims and survivors from my family—and to their stories that went unheard for too long. Here I try to find the human being behind the victim, to give them a face, a voice, a final memory. Because their stories deserve to be heard—so that we never forget what war truly means, and how precious our peace is.
Forgotten fronts (1914–1918)
The trenches of Europe consumed millions of lives. Boys and men who fought far from home in mud and darkness. But one family member made precisely the opposite journey. Lorenz Leo Thumann (1877–1915) left Europe, driven by courage or necessity, and joined the notorious French Foreign Legion—a unit of outsiders, often lost souls, who fought for a country that was not their own. He fought under a foreign flag on unfamiliar terrain. In Tonkin, now Vietnam, he met his end—far from everything familiar. He died alone in a struggle that was never truly his, leaving behind only a name and an echo of what might have been.
Resistance and destruction (1939–1945)
Charles Thumann (1893–1945) was not a man of grand words, but of courageous deeds. In the dense forests and hills of the Vosges he led a quiet resistance against the German occupier, risking his life anew each day to protect others. In the end his struggle was discovered and his fate sealed. Charles was taken to Monowitz concentration camp, where his life ended in a horrific manner in the gas chambers. His body was taken from him, but his courage and resistance could not be erased. In his birthplace of Senones his spirit lives on, immortalised in the square that bears his name—Place Charles Thumann—a lasting reminder of strength and quiet heroism.
The occupation of the Indies (1942–1945)
When Japanese troops invaded the Dutch East Indies, the lives of thousands of families changed in an instant. Homes were stripped bare, families abruptly torn apart, dreams shattered before they could bloom. Everyone with even a trace of European blood was regarded as an enemy. They were hunted down, humiliated, imprisoned, tortured—and many were never found again.
The Japanese occupiers came not only with weapons, but with an ideology: the 'Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere'. A new order in which Asia belonged solely to Asians. For European colonists and their children, who had built a home in the tropics over generations, there was no longer any place. Their homes were plundered, their identities erased, their existence denied. As if they had never existed.
Our family too was caught up in this. What they had built with love, what they had pursued with hope—all of it was swept away in an all-consuming storm of humiliation and violence.
These are some of their stories.
- Adolf Thümann (1924–1943)
Murdered by the Japanese in the harbour camp of the infantry barracks in Makassar. Without trial. Without mercy. Adolf was only nineteen years old. His youth taken from him by the loss of his father, his future by the Japanese. - Benjamin Westhoff (1911–1942)
Beheaded in a tyrannical manner by the Japanese in Kendari during the invasion of Celebes. No guilt, no defence, only a sword and an order. He left behind a family that had to carry on suddenly without a father. Buried at Ereveld Ancol.
Benjamin (Bob) Westhoff with his wife Ida Berthram and their children Paul Charles and Jeanny Aleida (Tjennie) Westhoff. A rare moment of togetherness, captured just before the war would tear them apart. The photograph is from the collection of Auntie Tjennie and was made available by her daughter Patty.
- Christiaan Adolf Robert Sutherland (1897–1943)
Died at the age of 46 under Japanese occupation. His grave lies outside the official war cemeteries. - Eduard Ernst Mollet (1882–1945)
Died on 7 July 1945 with freedom in sight, but out of reach. Buried outside the official war cemeteries. - Ferdinand Theodoor Thümann (1913–1943)
Murdered by the Japanese in Lawang. A senseless end to a life that had yet to begin. Thirty years old, an orphan, no children, no wife. Only brothers left to miss him. - Francis Duncan Jacobsz (1905–1945)
After more than three years of inhuman forced labour on the Burma–Siam Railway, his body gave out, his spirit exhausted. He succumbed to malaria in distant Siam. Buried at Kanchanaburi Allied War Cemetery. Discover his life story here.
The grave of Francis Duncan Jacobsz at the Allied War Cemetery in Kanchanaburi, Thailand (plot 3, row A, number 30). This photograph was taken on 7 October 2023 by his great-grandson Jeffrey Thümann, author of this story.
- Leonard Hendrik Piet Zondag (1889–1945)
He is buried at Ereveld Leuwigajah, together with 5,180 others. - Willy Edmond Stavers (1920–1943)
Died of acute pneumonia in the prisoner-of-war camp at Fukuoka, Japan. The medicines were there—but the Japanese kept them for themselves. He was only 23. Buried at Ereveld Menteng Pulo. - Lodewijk Napoleon de la Croix (1874–1945)
The war was over, but his body was already too broken. Weakened by years of starvation and mistreatment, he died within a month of the Japanese capitulation. Buried at Ereveld Kembang Kuning.
Camps and survival
The war in Asia did not end for everyone on 15 August 1945. Many returned home, but not as the same people. Those who survived the Japanese camps carried the war with them—sometimes in scars on the body, but more often deep within. For how do you carry on after years of humiliation, hunger, forced labour and the deaths of comrades? How do you find peace when your memories are filled with violence, fear and loss?
Their bodies returned home, but their souls often remained behind—along the Burma Railway, in a cell in Singapore, or under the smoke of Nagasaki. The war had robbed them not only of their freedom, but also of their innocence, their dreams, their peace of mind.
- Charles Jozef Thümann (1916–1999)
Three and a half years of forced labour under Japanese terror. His back bore the marks of whiplashes, his foot a brand. He came home, but the war stayed with him—like a shadow that never disappeared. Severely traumatised, marked for life.
Charles Jozef Thümann (bottom right) with his KNIL unit in Semarang, 1947. The world was celebrating peace, but for him the war continued.
- Constance Johannes Bernardus Mollet (*1896)
Interned in Bandung and later deported as a forced labourer to the Burma–Siam Railway at Kinsayok in Siam. - Deciré Westhoff (1909–1955)
We know little of his life. But his grave at Ereveld Pandu says enough: he too bore the weight of a war whose effects continued for a long time. - Eduard Frits Mollet (*1899)
From Bandung on Java to Wanyai in Siam. His path was one of imprisonment, forced labour and exhaustion. - Eduard Notenboom (1885–1948)
Imprisoned in Surabaya, worked to exhaustion along the Burma–Siam Railway at Kinsayok. The war was over, but its consequences persisted. He died in 1948. His grave is at Ereveld Kembang Kuning. - Ferdinand Mollet (*1924)
Interned in Bandung and deployed as a forced labourer in Tanjong Pagar, Singapore. Far from home, against his will, under Japanese terror. - Francis Declonie Stavers (*1898)
Deported from Malang to the heat of Wanyai, where under compulsion he worked on a railway that claimed more lives than metres of track. - Gerard Gerrit Mollet (*1923)
Taken from Bandung to Kanchanaburi, deep in the heart of the Burma–Siam Railway. He witnessed things that defy description. And he carried them with him—for the rest of his life. - Hendrik Constant Jozef Mollet (*1904)
His war began in Bandung, but the deepest scars were left at Non Pladuk. There, at the start of the Burma–Siam Railway, his silence began too. - Herbert Christiaan Charles Baier (1900–1957)
Taken from Surabaya to Osaka, where he worked as a forced labourer in the cold heart of Japan. His expression in photographs betrays what he never put into words—bitterness, pain, the weight of what he had seen. Yet after the war he built a family. He stood as a witness at my grandmother's wedding. He survived, but carried it all with him—visibly, silently, permanently. - Herman Hendrik Mollet (*1904)
From the camps in Bandung he was deported to the Japanese mainland. He worked under threat, compulsion and humiliation in the merciless industry of Yokohama. - Jan Thümann (1919–1981)
As a sailor aboard HNLMS Evertsen he survived the Battle of the Java Sea. His ship was struck, the aft magazine exploded, and the crew jumped overboard as the stern was torn away. What followed was not liberation, but captivity. He became a prisoner of war of the Japanese and was set to work as a forced labourer in Singapore. - John George Jacobsz (1910–1991)
Interned in Bandung and deployed as a forced labourer in Singapore. - Jozef van den Doren (*1904)
He was deprived of his freedom in Bandung. Then deported to Nagasaki, where under compulsion he worked in the Mitsubishi steelworks. There, under Japanese guard, he toiled in exhaustion—until one morning the unthinkable happened. The sky tore open. The sun fell to earth. Everything burned. Jozef became an eyewitness to the first ever use of an atomic bomb. - Marino Johannes Mollet (*1914)
In Bandung he was imprisoned. In Kinsayok, deep in the jungle of Siam, he was forced into labour on the notorious Burma–Siam Railway. - Napoleon Adolfo Mollet (*1908)
In Thanbyuzayat his work began. Not with tools, but with orders, blows and fear. As a forced labourer on the Burma–Siam Railway he hauled sleepers and silence. His wife was left behind. The war tore them apart. - Richard Oscar Mollet (1915–1966)
From Bandung he was deported to Sumatra, where under Japanese compulsion he worked on the Pekanbaru Railway—a line that was never completed, but cost thousands of lives. He survived, but the stolen years were never given back. - Richard Rudolf Mollet (*1919)
He was interned in Bandung and ended up as a forced labourer in Kinsayok, deep in the heart of the Siamese jungle. - Rudolf Thümann (1918–1976)
He was the uncle who enchanted children with jokes and magic tricks, but behind his smile lay the silence of a scarred past. Interned in Bandung, put to work on the Burma–Siam Railway at Kinsayok—a place where humanity crumbled under hunger and whiplashes. After the war he hoped for peace and a family. He found love, but not children. And even when peace came, the violence continued: a mortar shell struck his street in Cimahi. He kept laughing, giving, living. But what the war had taken from him, he never got back. - Willem Frederik Hauber (*1908)
In Bandung his captivity began. At Chungkai he was deployed as a forced labourer on the Burma–Siam Railway—in a sweltering camp that housed 'the sick', but healed no one. - William Neate Godfried Claasz (*1896)
From Surabaya his descent began. Interned, deported, and ultimately set to work on the Burma–Siam Railway in the dense jungle of Thanbyuzayat in Burma.
Uncle Ruud (bottom right) and Auntie Stien (behind him) trying to resume normal life, together with acquaintances on Djalan D.B.T. (now Jalan Buntu) in Cimahi, around 1947. The photograph was shared by William Verduyn Lunel—then a neighbour boy, now a witness to a vanished era. His parents also appear in the photograph.
The Thümann family around 1949. From left to right: Jack, Charles, Guus, Ruud and Jan. Seated in the front: Josina Akolo, Max, Meiske, and Auntie Ida. Uncle Freddy was three minutes too late. Uncle Ferry, Eduard and Adolf never came home. Their names were suppressed, their stories drowned in silence.
Without a grave, without an end
Not everyone came home. For some the gate remained closed, the silence endless. Some names disappeared entirely—from registers, from memories, from time. No grave, no farewell letter, no certainty. Only a gnawing emptiness, and a name that whispers in family stories and old documents, as if at any moment it wishes to be found again.
- Adolf Akollo (*1904)
Disappeared without trace. No grave, no word, only a name that lingers in our family history. - Ezau Ruspanah (*1907)
He was abducted by the Japanese, but never returned. - Marthen Akollo (*1909)
The silence surrounding him is loud. His story was never told—but his absence speaks.
The Bersiap and its aftermath (1945–1949)
After the Japanese capitulation, many believed the worst was over. But for thousands of families, the next nightmare was only just beginning: the Bersiap. In the power vacuum that arose, a wave of violence erupted—blind, ferocious and unpredictable. Indigenous youths, stirred up by anger, frustration and years of oppression, turned against everything that had a colonial appearance.
What followed was a raw struggle for independence, in which innocent people were murdered, houses set alight and families torn apart. For many there was no distinction between guilt and origin—being European, Chinese, Armenian or Dutch-Indonesian was sufficient reason to die.
- Eduard Thümann (1923–1946)
He grew up without a father. A youth full of emptiness, a life that had barely begun. During the war he fled to Australia, and after the liberation returned as a serviceman—assigned to the Detachment Military Aviation and later the 2nd Security Battalion at the 13th Air Base in Padang. But in Sumatra he found no peace. At the air base he was attacked by a violent group of youths, blinded by the rage of a country in revolt. Surgeons attempted to save him with an emergency intestinal repair, but it was too late. He was only 23 years old. His sole 'crime': wearing a Dutch uniform.
Portrait of Eduard Thümann in the 1940s. His brother Charles Jozef Thümann kept it his whole life—a silent face in a photo album.
The grave of Eduard Thümann (1923–1946) at Ereveld Leuwigajah in Cimahi, West Java. Photographed on 2 March 2024 by Jeffrey Thümann—author of this story and grandson of his brother.
- Freddy Westhoff (1908–1945)
He had a Javanese mother. He was married to a Javanese woman. But that was not enough. His European name sufficed to condemn him. He was murdered in a bestial manner by Indonesian extremists—as if his blood, his love, his life were worth nothing. Buried outside the official war cemeteries. No honour, no rest. Only injustice. - Lodewijk Alexander de la Croix (1891–1945)
He was no soldier. No perpetrator. Only a machinist in a sugar factory. A man with a profession, a rhythm, an existence. But the revolution spared no one. He became a victim of blind hatred—no trial, no story, no defence. Only a name and a grave at Ereveld Pandu. - Maurits Martens Mollet (1887–1946)
Javanese at heart, Javanese by descent—for generations. Only his name remained European. That was enough to reject him. His grave lies outside the official war cemeteries, as if his existence was never quite permitted to count.
What we pass on
It was well over thirty degrees. The blazing tropical sun hung high above Jakarta. And yet I had goosebumps. Palm trees swayed lazily in the warm air. In the distance the roaring traffic of the city could be heard. But at Ereveld Menteng Pulo, time stood still. Among an ocean of white crosses. Beneath the sound of the bugle.
I was not there by chance. I had been invited to lay a wreath on behalf of the National Veterans Platform. Together with Vera de Vries, daughter of a veteran. We did not know each other. And yet we stood there as allies. Two people, two lines running through history. Our hands full of flowers. Our eyes fixed on the monument.
My grandfather, Charles Jozef Thümann, does not lie here. But I carry his legacy within me. He survived the Burma–Siam Railway. His body came home, but his spirit remained behind. When I told my father that I had been asked to lay a wreath, he fell silent. And a little later the tears came. "Your grandfather would be proud," he said softly.
We, the grandchildren, were born in peace, but grew up in echoes. We are that in-between generation. Children of parents who knew little, grandchildren of grandparents who stayed silent. We learned to listen to what was not said. We read between the lines. So we searched for faces in yellowed photographs. For names on gravestones. For traces of lives that seemed to have been erased.
And now we stand there. In places where they were silent. We speak. Sometimes with trembling voices. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes with nothing but a wreath.
The ceremony was subdued. Solemn. No mass crowd, no grand spectacle. But charged with meaning nonetheless. The Dutch ambassador spoke. The defence attaché. Representatives of the Dutch-Indonesian Genealogical Society, the War Graves Foundation.
The bugle sounded. The Last Post rang out. Two minutes of silence. And then: the Wilhelmus.
As I stood there, with my feet in the tropical soil and my eyes on the monument, I felt the fault line of history running through my own body. The war was never my war, and yet I carry it with me. Not as a burden, but as a duty. For commemoration does not stop at silence or ceremony. It lives on in what we do with what we know. In how we pass on what was kept silent. In how we seek answers to questions that have gone unanswered for too long.
Perhaps that is ultimately the strength of our in-between generation: that we search where others fell silent, speak where it hurts, and keep on remembering. Even when no one is watching.
After the Remembrance Ceremony at Ereveld Menteng Pulo, 4 May 2025. With Vera de Vries, Maarten Fornerod (Dutch-Indonesian Genealogical Society), Ambassador Marc Gerritsen (Kingdom of the Netherlands) and Evelien de Vink (War Graves Foundation). Photography by Miel van Hutten.
