• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Janneke Jobsis Brown

Following Shadows

  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • WW II Heritage
  • Events
  • Intergenerational Trauma
  • Video
  • Blog
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Trauma-Healing / (5) August 15, 1945 Liberation Begins as Bersiap time errupts

August 16, 2011 By Janneke

(5) August 15, 1945 Liberation Begins as Bersiap time errupts

Ausust 15, 1945

Japan formerly surrendered

Join in this stark celebration of the beginning of the 66th year to commemorate the liberation of Japanese Concentration Camps in the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftvl2Utvkxo

Don’t let the empty screen bewilder you, by the end of the day wreaths from other  countries (including Japan), organizations, flowers from survivors, from survivors’ families and the power of personal stories will fill the day and the scene.

On this day, in1945,  and the days and weeks to follow all Japanese camp inmates, slave laborers, POW’s and civlians had a renewed hope to survive.

Like all of life,  liberation was not an event but a process. The liberation process proved to be slow and fragile, many still died after liberation.

My father’s family was told of liberation at camps Tjiapit  and Tjideng after Augsut 15, 2011.

My father, Kess Jobsis begain his journey after a short delay, to find family, a dangerous journey for a scare-crow thin fifteen year old boy — as there was no allied forces presence  yet to establish safety. Fortunately they were reunited and left for the Netherlands December 1945. Like so many, they never saw their home (on Billeton island) again.

Most survivors would never go “home” again to homes in the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia. Instead they  established homes, usually with nothing but the few items they left the camps with. These uprooted homes were formed in The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia (and for some eventually Canada, America and other countries).

Please join me in celebrating this portion of our Greatest Generation, and the generations since.

(not every child in this photo survived. The children include most likely Herman Jobsis, Kees Jobsis and Mechtelien Jobsis, who all thankfully did survive, along with their older brother Gerrit Jobsis who almost starved during Nazi occupation in the Netherlands)

 

 

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Share this post:

Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Share on Email

Filed Under: Trauma-Healing, War's Family Tagged With: Dutch East Indies, Dutch-American, faith meaning and World War II, Generations after World War II, Japanese Concentration Camps, Jappen Kampen, lost childhood, Nederland, Netherlands, World War II

Previous Post: « (4) August 14, 1945 Liberation: A Bridge to Peace
Next Post: Back from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Changi Prison, Singapore »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Steven L. Edwards says

    August 17, 2011 at 3:15 am

    This reminds me of what happened in the Philippines at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. I had a neighbor who was interred there. Makes you appreciate normal, everyday things – like food!

Primary Sidebar

Signup for Updates

Sign-up and read the first two chapters of Following Shadows FREE. You will receive updates in your inbox whenever new articles are posted.



Connect with Janneke

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Survivor Psalm
  • Paratrooper "Angels" of WWII
  • Trauma and Truth
  • Do we really recall WWII lessons AND recall WWII history?
  • Open Door

Topics:

  • Grace Stories
  • Homesick-Heimwee
  • Thirty Days of Light
  • Trauma-Healing
  • Uncategorized
  • War's Family

Footer

Meet Janneke

Janneke Jobsis Brown
Following Shadows is inspired by my own story. As a survivor of an international childhood with parents who were World War II survivors, I know the generational after-effects of starvation and slave labor in Japanese concentration camps for my father, and the terror of Nazi occupation for my mother. I know the challenges of struggling to feel at home across three countries: The Netherlands, Iran and America.

Read More…

Recent Blogs

  • Survivor Psalm
  • Paratrooper "Angels" of WWII
  • Trauma and Truth
  • Do we really recall WWII lessons AND recall WWII history?
  • Open Door

Connect with Janneke

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Read Two Free Chapters

Sign-up and read the first two chapters of Following Shadows FREE.



Copyright © 2021 · Janneke Jobsis-Brown, All Rights Reserved