Boven-Digoel

Boven-Digoel was a Dutch punishment camp in the Dutch-Indies between 1926 and 1942 on built on the side of the river de Digoel, where Indonesian nationalists and communists met each other. On this place now lays a place called Tanahmerah. The camp itself has all of the aspects of a concentration camp, but in literature you will most likely find it as a penalty camp” The camp lay south of New-Guinea, about 450 km from the coast in the tropical rainforest. As a prisoner at this particular camp contact with the outside world or escaping is almost impossible. The camp was surrounded with hundreds of Km of rainforest and dangerous Poppaea-tribes. It very infamous for its horrible infestation of endemic malaria. The reason for the making of this camp was a communist uprising in the old Dutch-Indies. In the begin of 1928 the first prisoners were brought into the camp, and they were 800 indigenous people and 10 Chinese people. The most of them were deeply intellectual, and except for a handful of people, they were all people of the PKI which was forbidden by the Dutch. There were 16 escape attempts, but according to De Jong, only 5 succeeded. The escapees made it to Australia but were sadly deported back to the camp. We in the 21st century should definitely still care about this punishment-camp because of all of the pain and suffering it caused for many people.
Another reason to remember it is to prevent something like this to ever happen again.