The Forgotten Death Railway
2008 will mark the 63rd anniversary of the Muaro - Pekanbaru railway, which was finished on 15 August 1945. But this was no ordinary railway. Like its more-well known counterpart, the Thai - Burma Railway , forced labourers built it. The building of this railway has cost the lives of Indonesian romushas and Dutch, British, and Australian prisoners of war ( POWs ). Some have estimated that more than 10,000 of them are buried alongside the tracks in the middle of the dense Sumatera jungle, though no one will ever know the exact figure. Therefore, this railway is known as the Sumatera Death Railway. Unlike the Burma Railway (which even had a film, “The Bridge on the River Kwai ” made about it), however, not many people know about the Sumatera Death Railway, not even in Indonesia. Before World War II the Dutch colonial government had already made plans to construct a railway network connecting the east and west coasts of Sumatera , and eventually covering the whole island. The line co...