Prison in Makassar

Other name: De boei
Internees: prisoners of war
Number of internees: 1.200 (approximately)
Information: Makassar's prison was used from the beginning of March to April 3rd 1942 as an internment camp for naval prisoners of war and a small number of KNIL soldiers. The majority were Dutch survivors of the battle in the Java Sea (Hr. Ms. De Ruyter and Hr. Ms. Java) and marine and merchant shipping personnel who had been on board the evacuation ships Tjisaroea (JCJL) and Duymaer van Twist (KPM), which were stopped by the Japanese during their attempt to escape Tjilatjap. At 50 people to a cell, the prison was overcrowded, and provisions for food and hygiene were bad. The seriously ill were removed to the Op ten Noort, a KPM ship which had been outfitted as a naval hospital ship in 1941 and which after the battle in the Java Sea had been escorted to Makassar by the Japanese. During March the internees were brought by groups to the KNIL infantry encampment elsewhere in Makassar, until June 1941 the central prisoner of war camp on Celebes.
Literature: Stolk, T. en P. Seth Paul, Hoe het ons verging... op Zuidwest Celebes en omliggende eilanden (Emmen [1994])
Jorisch, H., Rood voor. Herinneringen van Hans Jorisch, krijgsgevangene van de Japanners in Nagasaki (Amsterdam 1990)
Legemaate, H.J., A.J.J. Mulder en M.G.J. van Zeeland, Hr. Ms. Kruiser 'De Ruyter' 1933-1942 (Purmerend 1999)

Internees: men
Information: In July of 1943, about 100 men from the evacuation camp at Pekato were interned at the prison in Makassar. These were ex-KNIL soldiers who had in March 1942 been granted permission to join their families.