Romushas 

(slave labourers)

In April 1943 the first romushas arrived in Sumatra to work on the Padang Pakan Baroe railway. They were promised wages for the work they had to do, but in fact they worked as slaves. If the conditions of the POWs were indescribable, theirs was even worse.

Most of them  came from Java. Even before the KNIL surrender on March 8 1942, the Japs had identified Java as the island with a massive reserve of labourers, which could be liberally tapped into for the support of the Japanese war machine. Officially the well organized recruiting of romushas on Java was a matter of volunteers. But when the fortunes of war turned against Japan, a hundred thousand new slave labourers were picked up from movie theatres and market places, or with force, intimidation and under the threat of punishment shanghaied and dispatched

Medical care was unheard of and the sick and dying were left where they were. 

How many Romushas there were is impossible to establish, because the Japanese did not keep accurate records, and what records there were were destroyed after the capitulation .

It is estimated that there may have been as many as 12.000 in Sumatra, working on different projects.

After the capitulation, only 23.000 alive according to Red Cross reports. In January 1946, from the 120.000 who worked on the railway, 16.000 still alive. In total some 80.000 Romushas must have lost their lives in Sumatra.

Often POWs stumbled onto decomposed bodies or dying Romushas.

After the war many stayed in Sumatra and never returned to their homes.

Some of the surviving Romushas

The terrain beyond camp 12 (20 km from Muara) became more and more rugged. When the Dutch surveyed the terrain it was suggested to dig tunnels. The Japanese had no such plans and with dynamite blew up whole sections of mountain sides. In the first instance romushas were used to clear the rubble away. This was  very dangerous work. The Japanese give little or no warning when explosives were used and this resulted in the death of 36 romushas near Silokat. The result of the widening of the track in this way, was that the railway ran under overhanging rock faces. One day a passing train caused a rock to fall down, killing a group of romushas. The next group had to clear and repair the track and remove the bodies.