Merdekakamp

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“(We) were put in a sectioned off part of town with big houses called Merdekakamp. We could prepare our own food on charcoal fires. We slept on the floor…(which was) not bad because we had plenty of room. One day an airplane dropped pamphlets over our house. Of course we weren’t allowed to pick them up and read them. I found one and hid it in the crotch of my shorts. A guard who had seen me stopped me, and I denied having this piece of paper…he was very angry and stuck me with his bamboo spear in my right leg. The wound got terribly infected and smelled awful…The daughter of a doctor… gave me a powder to put on my wound. It was one of the newest medicines at the time-penicillin-and indeed the wound finally healed within a short period of time.”

Editor’s Note: The guard who stabbed Anna was Japanese.