Tante Annie in actie (Aunt Annie in action)

A woman named Aunt Annie is surrounded by the kitchen boys at Camp Karees. 'Aunt Annie was in charge of the boys that had to do the heavy work in the kitchens. They had to be there in the early hours of the morning: lighting fires, washing the rice and later the vegetables.' Correspondence of Mrs Hanny Balt, November 2001. Mrs Hanny Balt, then Hanny Hessels, was an internee of Camp Karees along with her sister Dicki, nicknamed Ponny, her youngest brother Dirk, nicknamed Bully, her grandfather Dirk Van Zalm and her mother Mrs Frederika Hessels Van Zalm. This is one of 28 drawings created by internees of Camp Karees and presented to Mrs Frederika Hessels Van Zalm as a token of appreciation for her tireless work running the camp's kitchen. Camp Karees was one of many internment camps created in Indonesia, by the Japanese, for the detainment of Dutch residents in the Second World War. Camp Karees was created for the detainment of women and children. A number of elderly men were also detained at Camp Karees. The camp held 6000 internees and private cooking was forbidden. All meals were provided form a central kitchen and trading for food from outside the camp was severely punished. 'Karees was a collection of houses in the poorer section of Bandoeng, fenced off with gedek (plaited bamboo sheets) topped with barbed wire.' Shirlie Fenton Huie, 1992.