ABSTRACT
On 8 March 1942, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger, knil) surrendered to Japan. The Japanese army, commanded by General Hitoshi Imamura, took control of the Dutch East Indies. Imamura moved into the official residence of Governor General A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborgh on Koningsplein, Jakarta. The governor general left his palace flanked by a number of Japanese soldiers, who made him carry his own suitcase. 1 It was an unprecedented humiliation. The message was inescapable: under Japanese leadership, the roles of Europeans and Asians in the archipelago had been reversed. The European was no longer the lord and master, the Asian no longer the one who served him.
