Bersiap was the word used by the Japanese-trained militia, the PETA, to order its members to be “ready” for action. During the event, it presumably became a code word for the pemoeda, the youth, to call their fellow countrymen to fight the “colonialists.” Decades later, for many in the Netherlands that simple word has become a vivid reminder of the brutality of that time.

The atrocities in Surabaya began late October as the young militia acquired Japanese weapons amid the confusion when Dutch officers joined the Allied forces assigned to take over control from the defeated Japanese.

In the Simpang and Gubeng areas of Surabaya, also in Central Java’s Ambarawa and in Jakarta, many innocent civilians, including women and children, were killed and thousands went missing.

The events acquired renewed significance very recently, as the Netherlands’ ruling liberal-conservative political party VVD demanded that the violence should be revealed in a big academic research project on the war of decolonization 

Read also: Will we see decolonizing of Dutch decolonization war?

While some academics argue that the Bersiap could possibly be viewed as genocide, others argue that it has too often been viewed as isolated events. Nevertheless, violence breeds violence. The Dutch colonial history and Indonesia’s independence war are good cases to view violence from a long-term perspective.

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