Sketch of internees receiving dental treatment inside Camp Karees verso: [Young boy with dysentery]

Depicts a sketch of internees receiving dental treatment inside Camp Karees with a group of women and young children standing near two women who are about to perform the dental treatment on a young girl who is seated, with her mouth agape. This work provides an insight into the extremely difficult health conditions and poor medical facilities endured by the internees and witnessed by Elizabeth Tierie (later Elizabeth Samson-Bouret). On the verso of this drawing is a pencil study of a young boy lying on a bed, his face buried, surrounded by pillows. The inscription which notes; [Illeg.]under dysenterie IIIB suggesting that the image is of an ill boy, suffering dysentery. Camp Karees was a Japanese internment camp for Dutch women and children at Bandeong in Java during the Second World War. The drawing was created by Elizabeth Tierie (later Elizabeth Samson-Bouret) when she 15 years old and living in the camp. Large numbers of Dutch civilians, particularly women and children, were interned by the Japanese, in exceptionally cruel conditions, during the war. More than 13,000 died. After their release, many former internees settled in Australia. Camp Karees was an internment camp set up by the Japanese to detain Dutch women and children. A number of elderly men were also detained at the camp, with it holding a total of 6000 internees. Private cooking was forbidden in the camp and all meals were provided from a central kitchen and trading for food outside the camp was severely punished. Camp Karees was a collection of houses in the poorer section of Bandoeng, fenced off with gedak (plaited bamboo sheets) topped with barbed wire. There was a small pasar, or market, in the camp where they could buy food and the gate was sometimes open, allowing outside visits. For many Dutch colonial women, the experience of internment was particularly difficult, as not only had they never toiled or spun, they had never cooked, kept house, changed nappies, bathed children or suffered any of the hardships of war. In POW camps such as Camp Karees all inmates were part of working parties. Even women up to the age of 60 had to perform hard manual labour. Elizabeth was interned in Camp Karees during the Second World War with Charles Samson-Bouret. Although both Elizabeth and Charles were interned in the same camp, they did not meet each other until they had returned to Holland and, where they married and immigrated to Australia.