Barisan Pekerdja.webm

Barisan Pekerdja; Japanese propaganda film (1941-1945). For the people. Film reportage and also propaganda film about the recruitment of Javanese workers for the Japanese war effort. Although the application seemed entirely voluntary, one could still speak of recruiting because there was great pressure on the local authorities to mobilize the population for this purpose. The fate of these romusha's ultimately turned out to be miserable, often worse than that of the prisoners of war. Often left to their own devices by the Japanese, they were left to hunger and disease, and when they were found by the liberators they were emaciated. They were seen leaving the kampong and boarding a ship in Semarang; "Please note: This film is part of a collection of Japanese films used by the propaganda department of the Japanese military administration during the Pacific War, when the former Dutch East Indies (Indonesia now) were occupied by Japan from 1942-1945. Soon after the Japanese capitulation in August 1945 these films were confiscated by the returning Dutch authorities in Indonesia and shipped to the Netherlands. The films were released by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision after