The hamlet of Yettington, just a mile or so from East Budleigh, was the birthplace in 1608 of Roger Conant’s nephew, the eminent theologian and vice-chancellor of Oxford University, Dr John Conant. It is also the home of Hanneke Coates, whose story of peace and reconciliation was published in Fairlynch Museum’s magazine The Primrose.
Hanneke was born just
before WW2 on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia),
where her father was a tea planter. After the invasion of Java by the Japanese
in 1942, she was forced to spend three and a half years of her childhood in one
of over 300 concentration camps based around the Archipelago. After the war, as
was the practice with many colonials, Hanneke’s parents remained abroad whilst
she and her siblings returned to Holland to be fostered out to a number of
Dutch families. Later Hanneke moved to England, settling in Yettington.
‘After the invasion
all European women and children were advised by the Japanese forces to move to
protection camps for their own safety,’ she explained. ‘So we left our homes
voluntarily expecting to be protected, but as soon as the camps were filled,
they put barbed wire around us. In the meantime husbands and fathers were sent
to work on the Burma railway line or placed in concentration camps in and around
Japan.’
‘We were constantly
moved from one camp to another, often transported in boarded up train carriages
without seating, lavatories, food or drink. My final camp was the notorious
Tjideng camp (now part of Jakarta) which housed around 11,000 women and children. The camp was one of many set up to intern
European civilians, mainly Dutch, as ‘Guests of the Emperor’ during the period
1942 to 1945. Those of us who ended up
there experienced what can only be called ‘hell on earth’.
‘Food was in short
supply and we survived on a starvation diet of half a coconut shell with rice
and water-lily soup once a day. Water and sanitation were almost non-existent
and medical supplies very scarce as all Red Cross parcels were withheld by the
Japanese. We all suffered from tropical diseases such as Cholera, dysentery and
malaria.
‘The most lasting
effect of those three and a half years in captivity was the relentless and
total humiliation the Japanese inflicted on us. We were day and night screamed
at, publicly disgraced and punished by having our hair hacked off with blunt
knives and regularly lashed with long whips. Many times a day we were herded on
to the parade ground to stand for hours in the burning tropical sun and to bow
to our captors. One of my earlier memories is from when I was four years old
when we were made to witness the hanging of two Dutch soldiers. By the end of
the war many hundreds of thousands of women and children had died through
malnutrition, tropical diseases and lack of medication. I was one of the lucky
ones.’
In time, Hanneke was
able to come to terms with her grim experiences. Her book, The Breaking of
the Shell, was published in 2018 as part of The Forgiveness Project, a
UK-based charity that
uses real stories of victims and perpetrators of crime and violence to help
people explore ideas around forgiveness and alternatives to
revenge. With no political or religious affiliations, The Forgiveness Project's
independent and inclusive approach ensures its core message – that
everyone has the potential to change their perspective and break the cycle of
vengeance – resonates across all cultures.
You can read the full story as published at https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories-library/hanneke-coates/
If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/700424602802079
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