Japanese Horror Camp Found on Tarakan

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 110, 11 May 1945, Page 5

Japanese Horror Camp Found on Tarakan

Received Thursday 9.60 p.m. MELBOURNE, May 10.

The corpses of Indonesian slave labourers who had been shot through the ankles to prevent their escape have been found in a Japanese horror camp on Tarakan. The camp was visited by officers of the Netherlands East Indies Civil Administration who landed on Tarakan with the Australian invasion troops.

“The corpses of the dead Javanese were mero skeletons and were lying on the ground and in thatched huts which had served as living quarters for the prisoners,” writes Nathan Brcch, the Netherlands Press Agency correspondent. ' ‘Visiting one of the huts I found six dead Indonesians lying along the walls. None of the survivors remembered when the victims had died as they had lost track of time.”

“One survivor still strong enough to talk, aaid that the average number of slave labourers regulariy employed on Tarakan amounted to 200, most ol whom were Javanese. They worked mainly in vegetable I "gardens which supplied the Japanese garrison.”