The sleepless nights in Ambarawa camp seven

When we turn the pages of a kid’s view on WWII we cannot reject the importance of Ambarawa Camp Seven in the book of World War II. Ambarawa is a market town located between Semarang and Salatiga in Central Java, Indonesia.

Ambarawa lies some way above sea level and was an administrative centre for the Dutch colonialists. It is now a popular area for local tourists, particularly with the nearby hill station of Bandungan and the Hindu-Buddhist temples at Gedong Songo. Foreign tourists pass through the area particularly in conjunction with visiting the Buddhist temple at Borobudur.

Ambarawa was once an important connecting rail link providing a cog railiway locomotive into the central mountain range. The Semarang-Ambarawa-Magelang line was fully operational until 1977. It is the site of the Museum Kereta Api Ambarawa ('Ambarawa Railway Museum').

The museum was established in the 1970s primarily to preserve a wide selection of the steam locomotives which were then coming to the end of their useful lives on the 3ft 6in (1067mm) gauge railways of the Indonesian State Railway (the then Perusahaan Negara Kereta-Api, PNKA). These are parked in the open air next to the original station, originally a transhipment point between the 4ft 8½in gauge branch from Kedungjati to the north-east and the 3ft 6in gauge line onward towards Yogyakarta via Magelang to the south. It is still possible to see that the two sides of the station were built to accommodate different size trains. It was there in the World War II time also.

Hence the museum is well situated and its development into a world class site is not only desirable but feasible with the right kind of backing. Currently it is still part of the State Railway who has supported it to the best of its ability since formation although funding has never been generous. Now the provincial Government of Central Java is increasingly taking an interest from the point of view of its heritage significance and its potential as a tourist attraction. Non-Governmental bodies like the Semarang Heritage Society are also acting to assist and there is also an unofficial overseas group The Friends of Ambarawa Railway Museum'.

Ambarawa was the site of Japanese interment camps where up to 15,000 Europeans had been held during the Japanese occupation during World War II. Few death camps were there and comfort women camp too. And thus this place had sleepless nights. And next blog explains about this ‘sleepless’ nights in the comfort slave camps. Following Japanese surrender and the subsequent proclamation of Indonesian independence, fighting broke out in the Ambarawa area on 20 November 1945 between British troops evacuating European internees and Indonesian Republicans. A kid’s view on WWII by Mr. Ralph and Cathy Brink explain them well.