ABSTRACT
Millions of people lost their lives in the Second World War. The suffering and death of Europeans, Americans, and Australians is minutely recorded in hundreds of books. The world film archives are full of historical material that gives a poignant portrayal of their struggle and demise. All but forgotten, however, is the drama of millions of Javanese slaves the Japanese occupation forces recruited in the years 1942 to 1945 to work under inhumane conditions for the Japanese war machine. Some 300,000 of these forced laborers were sent outside Java, and three quarters of them perished.
