Memories

Places
Accession Number ART93098
Collection type Art
Measurement Overall: 97 x 71 cm
Object type Painting
Physical description oil on canvas
Maker Williams, Bernadine
Place made Australia
Date made c 1990
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright

Item copyright: AWM Licensed copyright

Description

This work records the experiences of a former civilian Prisoner of War. Bernadine Williams (nee Schwartz) was one of thousands of Dutch civilians placed in internment camps following the Japanese invasion of the Netherlands East Indies in 1942. Painted retrospectively, 'Memories' illustrates various aspects of the artist's three year internment with her mother and siblings in a camp in Java. The timber houses in the lower left corner represent houses in the city of Palembang, Sumatra, where the artist's family lived before the war. At the centre a group of women and children are held in a fenced enclosure, watched by two sinister-looking Japanese guards brandishing rifles. At the base of the palisade, a group of women are shown bowing low, recalling the twice daily roll call of the camp's 10,000 internees. In the upper section of the painting, the figures of six children representing Williams and her siblings float free above the camp walls, surrounded by a brilliantly coloured blue and white sky indicating their hope for the future. During the war, Williams's elder brother, Jacobus Schwartz, escaped to Australia, where he served as a pilot with a Dutch squadron as part of the RAAF. After the Japanese surrender, Williams and her family were flown to Australia, arriving in December 1945.