Pakket 4 pagina 12

Pakket 4 pagina 12

that he has heard that only a few women who actually resisted en that according to XXXX, the women were so content with the way they were treated, that they wanted to stay in the ‘club’; that he – as an older officer – once warned Major XXXX that these acts were in conflict with the meaning of the ‘hakko inchi-u’ (the whole world one family), but to no avail;
Considering, that in court the (non sworn) statements of the Japanese XXXX (captain), XXXX (reserve-captain), XXXX (colonel), XXXX (doctor) and XXXX (reserve-captain) have been read aloud and presented to the defendants, from which becomes clear:
that, when by the end of March 1944 the military authorities were to take over the detention camps in Middle-Java from the civil administration, they discovered that women who belonged in those camps, were being forced to work as a prostitute in the brothels in Semarang; that the Headquarter of the detention camps for prisoners of war and civilians considered this course of action as undesirable, since it could be concluded that the women were forced, which was in conflict with international laws; that a colonel XXXX from Tokio came to inspect the camps in April 1944 and this was reported to him; that the brothels were closed and the women were transported to Kota Pariskamp in Buitenzorg, where after interrogation and medical examination, it became clear that many of them stated that they were force and that of 100 women, 25 to 30 had a venereal disease;
Considering that from the statements of the witnesses involved it has become clear with certainty;
that the women in the formerly mentioned detention camps were not told what kind of work they would have to be doing outside those camps;
that they were suspicious regarding the intentions of the Japanese who came to select girls and women, but each time the answers to questions concerning those suspicions were reassuring;
that the women and girls, who in the end had to leave their camps to be transported to the Kanarielaan in Semarang, were indeed not aware that they were going to have to work as prostitutes in brothels;
that most of these girls and women were forced by assault and coercion to submit to sexual intercourse with Japanese men, for which purpose they were stationed in the brothels as mentioned in the indictment;
Considering that according to the judgement of the Krijgsraad, the Japanese would have met strong resistance and great difficulties, should they have made the goal the women and girls were to serve, public, and that it is doubtful whether they would have succeeded in recruiting women and girls from the camps, without having to use violence;
that this is confirmed by the events in the Sompok (Lampersarie) camp, where according to the report of VIIen and defendant XXXX, the women revolted when it became clear what they were supposed to do, after which open resistance the administration of the camp could no longer warrant the peace and order in that camp and the Japanese decided not to take women and girls from this camp;
Considering – as defendant VII XXXX has admitted – that in the camps Halmaheira, Ambawara 4 and 6, the goal was kept a secret and that during the recruitment in those camps no problems have occurred, while after arriving in a building in the Kanarielaan in Semarang, the girls and women had to sign a document written in Japanese characters, of which the contents were not explained to them and apparently deliberately were kept a secret for them;
Considering that more witnesses have declared that they were threatened to be killed, with bad treatment of their parents, with transport to a soldiers’ brothel or to a brothel with far worse circumstances etcetera, should they persist in their refusal to submit themselves as a prostitute;
Considering that from this course of actions it appears evidently that the Japanese were fully aware that the Dutch

The original transcript is in Dutch, to find it, scroll to page 12 here.