The first Jews who came to the Dutch East Indies (hereafter referred to by its modern name, Indonesia) were most likely Iraqi and Iranian Jews who joined Arab traders in their expeditions to the islands during the Portuguese rule there (1619-1641). In a later period, mostly after the expul-sion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, some Spanish Jews also made their way to Holland and from there to Indonesia. A number of the new arriv-als spoke Arabic and Portuguese and became middlemen and interpreters
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Jews in the Japanese - Occupied Territories during the War Years
between foreigners and the local population. Jews were formally allowed to settle in Indonesia and work for the Dutch East Indies Company begin-ning in 1782. A few engaged in the spice trade, as well as in the sale of precious stones. The number of Jews on the islands grew steadily after the Dutch government, which had captured Indonesia in 1815, permitted Jews to settle in its Asian colony in 1882.
Indonesian Jews tended not to flaunt their religious affiliation, and some even tried to conceal it. This may explain why a strong, well-organized community didn’t emerge until the 1930’s. In 1930 the Dutch authorities conducted a population census in which 1,095 people identified them-selves as Jews. On the eve of the Pacific War, Indonesian Jews numbered between 2,500-3,000, or two percent of the foreigners in that colony. They were divided between Iraqi Jews and the Ashkenazi community. The Iraqis concentrated mainly in Surabaya and were involved in import and export, small artisan shops, and peddling. The Ashkenazis lived mainly on the island of Java, concentrating in Batavia (today’s Jakarta) and Bandung. The beginning of some communal organization can be discerned in the early 1930’s, when Indonesian Jews began to assist several hundred Jews who had escaped from Nazi Germany. At the same time, a local newspaper called The Land of Israel appeared. A large proportion of the Jews of Indonesia worked for the East India Company, for the Shell oil company, or for the Dutch colonial administration. Others were professionals such as doctors, accountants, and lawyers. On the whole, they enjoyed a high standard of living, had virtually no ties with the local, predominantly Muslim popula-tion, and preferred to link their fates to that of the Dutch rulers.
Even before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Dutch authorities proclaimed that they had no intention of supplying Japan with resources that would aid its war effort: mainly oil, rubber, and bauxite. After the fall of Holland to the Nazis in May 1940, the Dutch admin-istration in Indonesia remained loyal to the Dutch government-in-exile in London. The Indonesian Jews were encouraged by the American promise to the Dutch government in November 1941 to send troops to help pro-tect the islands in case of a Japanese invasion. After the fall of Holland, the American Joint Distriubution Committee assisted some 90 Dutch Jews to find shelter in Indonesia. Shortly after the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japanese forces quickly invaded Indonesia from Borneo and Malaya. On March 8, 1942, the Dutch colonial administration surrendered the islands.
One of the first acts of the new conquerors was to release the Japanese civil-ians who had been interned by the Dutch. They then turned to dealing
with the European population. The 1930 census was a convenient basis for determining who the foreigners were. At first the Japanese placed all those who had served in the Dutch army (including some Jews) in pris-oner-of-war camps. This was followed by a decision to intern all of the 160,000 Dutch citizens in the islands, including women and children. The attitude of the Japanese occupation authorities toward the local Jews was no different than their attitude toward the other internees. The Japanese did not ask the Dutch or the native Indonesians to hand over the Jews. Those Jews who were Dutch nationals were imprisoned with the others. Those who held Russian or German documents were exempt. Iraqi Jews were also unmolested, as the Japanese treated them as Iraqi, nationals of a country not considered as an enemy of Japan.
In that first wave of arrests, only half of the Jews in Indonesia were interned. The rest were allowed to remain in their homes and carry on with their lives. But as the war situation worsened for Japan, in August 1943 the Japanese issued an order for the internment of all Jews, including Iraqi and German Jews. The change in policy can be partially explained by the growing resentment of the Jews that was developing in Japan, in the form of a large number of antisemitic articles in the Japanese media. In Indonesia itself, a number of antisemitic articles appeared, probably at the behest of the local Kempeitai commander, Murase Mitsuo.
Another major reason for the change of policy can be ascribed to grow-ing German pressure on the Japanese authorities to undertake harsh mea-sures against the Jews and to harm them. In July 1943, a German official by the name of Dr. Helmuth Wohlthat (1893-1973), arrived in Indonesia. He was a former senior aide to Reichsmarshall Herman Goering (1893-1946), and had taken part in discussions in 1940 on settling German and European Jews in Madagascar, where they would be exterminated in phases. He was sent to Tokyo before Pearl Harbor as the head of a German economic dele-gation to discuss with the Japanese government the possibility of Japan pro-viding Germany with raw materials from territories Japan would capture, and how to transfer those materials to Germany. In the early stages of the Pacific War, Wohlthat remained in Tokyo and participated in joint German-Japanese discussions on military cooperation and coordination. Japan agreed to allow the Germans the use of Batavia as an operational naval base, and the use of the ports of Singapore and Surabaya for submarines. Having secured that agreement, Wohlthat demanded that the Japanese undertake severe measures against the Jews. This may have been the main cause for the change of the Japanese attitude toward the Jews of Indonesia Jews.
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The new policy has to be seen in a broader context, namely the devel-opment of the war situation. The actions against the Jews were some of many steps in a broader policy that became increasingly harsh as it became obvious that Japan was not winning the war. The main victims of the new policy were first and foremost the local population, from whom the Japanese demanded a supply of laborers and essential raw materials during this time of rampant inflation, hunger, and a drastic fall in the standard of living. Additional victims were the local Chinese minority, which was accused of secretly supporting the Chinese nationalists. A quarter of a million Indonesians were sent to Japan or to other parts of its empire as forced laborers, and few returned home at the end of the war. The Japanese military authorities in Indonesia feared local uprisings and allied bombing of the sea lanes through which oil was sent to Japan. The senior Japanese commander was head of the 16th army, General Harada Komichi, and he allowed the detention of anyone accused of inciting revolt, including Jews and members of the Freemason Society. Harada, who had some experience in Jewish affairs from the time he served in the Special Branch section of the Japanese army in Manchuria, consulted his experts, Yasue and Inuzuka, and it seems that they advised him to ignore the Jews and focus on the local Muslim population. As a result, the Jews arrested were not subjected to harsher treatment than the other prisoners. There were cases when several non-Jewish Dutch people requested that the Jews be imprisoned in separate sections of the camps. The conditions of those who were imprisoned were in general harsh. While no one was allowed to leave the detention camps, they were permitted to observe the Sabbath, eat kosher meat, bake matzot for Passover, and observe Jewish holidays. A few were sent to forced labor camps, and some even helped build the bridge on the River Kwai. Their lot was later described by Rabbi Chaim Nussbaum, a graduate of the Telshe Yeshiva.
In comparison with the fate of Jewish communities in other areas of Japan’s wartime empire, that of the Indonesian Jews was much harsher. This can be explained by the Japanese military authorities’ stern treatment of the entire foreign population in those islands, and the worsening shortage of food and medicine. Post-war figures mention the deaths of scores of Jews during the war due to lack of medical attention, maknutrition, starvation, and old age. There were cases of looting, rape, and beatings, but there is no documentation of deliberate murder of Jews by the Japanese.
The imprisoned foreigners did not know of the end of the war and the surrender of Japan, or of Indonesia’s declaration of independence on August
14, 1945. Several days later, the doors of the camps were opened and the majority of the internees went home, but in view of the war of independence against the Dutch waged until 1949, the majority of the Jewish internees departed and went mostly to Holland. There they met Dutch Jews who had survived the Nazi death camps in Poland and other places, and realized how fortunate they had been despite the harsh conditions in the Indonesian camps. Some eventually travelled to Israel and the United States. The last remaining Jews in Surabaya left that city in 2014.