"Jakarta Java Indonesia" a Jakarta Travel Page by VincentJJ

Jakarta is the commercial and bureaucratic centre of Indonesia. In the seventeenth century the Dutch settlement of Batavia was built around the port of 'Sunda Kelapa'. Batavia was laid out like a city of the Netherlands, with small streets along canals; This soon proved to be the wrong approach for the tropics, as the canals were the source of many pestilent diseases. In the old town 'Kota' of Jakarta we can still see remnants dating back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The city developed rapidly, especially in the beginning of this century, as we can still see in the Menteng area. The most rapid development was after independence, when Jakarta exploded from a population of 900.000 in 1945 to 12 million people in 1999. The metropolis of Jakarta is the most polluted and overcrowded city of Indonesia. Yet as the commercial and cultural centre of the country Jakarta has much to offer in the way of culture, museums and night life. Jakarta is a city of many small villages, sometimes described as a 'huge steamer in a sea of kampungs' (villages).
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When I was in Jakarta on my second trip to Indonesia I made some time to visit the memorial Field of Honor at Menteng Pulo and see where my uncle; Joan Julian K. was set. It was a impressive moment for me to stand at his URN in witch his remains are kept.
It was a little shock for me to see that I was there right on the same day and month he was born(!)

Urn with remains of my uncle
(who I have never met)
Murded by the Japanese in the concentrationcamp at Fukuoka in World War II.

THIS is the last -known- image (drawing) of my poor uncle
(made by vdBerg or Bers)
at a concentrationcamp at
Fukuoka-Japan in September 1942.
There he died only 34 years old......
(The Dutch -men's- name: Joan, is pronounced as Jo-an.)
[Aug.4 1909 - Dec. 24 1943]