Coral Gables Historical Archive
Coral Gables Riviera-Times
Thursday, December 4, 1947, page 8 (of 12)
The page
The text of this pageRead by computer from the scan, so some words may be wrong. The page picture is the original.
INTERESTING NEIGHBORS Gables Woman Lived Three Years in Terror of Death As Prisoner of Japanese
By MRS. J. RILEY STAATS When slender, blonde Mrs. Herman Arens goes about her shopping in the Gables or hurries to the Riddle Inter-American College where she teaches, she looks so much like a pretty, poised and happy American girl that it is difficult to realize that she has already experienced two widely differing types of living and that at 26 she is beginning a new life in a strange land. The former Anne Ochse was born in Buitenzorg, West Java, and had a pleasant, sheltered childhood as the younger daughter of an official of the Dutch Government. Her father was the head of the Division of Economie Affairs which meant that his family had opportunities to visit various parts of the East Indies and to make occasional trips to Holland. Anne had learned to speak French, English and German by the time she graduated from the Teachers College in Java. MRS. ARENS —Riviera-Times photo by Rinner There were no women's clubs as we know them so—she took part in a debating society and enjoyed a young people's group corresponding to our Y. W. C. A., but her main hobby was rowing. Rowing matches in the canals were popular and racing shells holding four oarsmen competed. Anne was only 18 when her crew of junior girls won first place by two boat lengths against older and more experienced crews. After she began teaching in the elementary school at Buitenzorg she continued her enthusiastic participation in women's sport groups. Interned by Japanese When the Japanese occupied Java the Ochses had only a few hours to decide which of their possessions they could pack into a small case to take with them. Rare art objects, her father's valuable books, treasured family mementoes, all were destroyed by the invaders who cooked their meals over fires built with the family's precious possessions. Anne and her mother, her married sister and her sister's small baby boy were rudely hurried off to an internment camp in Bandoeng while her father and her sister's husband were made prisoners of war and taken to another military prison to suffer what fate they did not know. For three years they were separated and lived with the daily fear that the men had been executed or that they would die of malnutrition before they could see each other again. Fourteen thousand Dutch women were crowded into the Japanese internment camp and they soon made an attempt to organize themselves so that survival would be easier. Miss Ochses' undaunted courage at the dreary prospect facing them all and her practical commonsense soon caused her at 21 to be named one of the section leaders in charge of 700 women. Her training in sports stood her in good stead and enabled her to live and work on the pitifully short rations issued daily. Waded in Garbage She and her sister took the lead in cleaning up the camp and while they can laugh now at the idea of wading in garbage above the knees it was anything but pleasant during the years they spent there. The three women cut down on their own scant food supply to be sure that the baby had enough to nourish him properly and they became adept at hunting roots and edible plants and in bargaining a scarf or an old blouse for more food from their jailers. Once Anne thought that her long golden hair was to be forfeited. A bored and drunken Japanese camp commander sent several soldiers to trade sugar and rice with the Dutch women then beat unmercifully the two who dared to bargain with them. As further retaliation the section leaders were lined up to have their heads shaved. Anne, who had a few precious bobby pins, slipped out of line to her sister who lay ill in a nearby hut. "Here are my bobby pins!" she cried as she dashed in. "In five minutes I will have no hair!" When her mother began to cry she laughed and replied, "Oh, don't cry. It is only my hair and it will grow," but the leader's whim changed and she was not molested. She and other women hunted up scarves and cut off curls to hide the shorn heads of the eight who suffered so that the Japanese could not laugh at them as they had expected to do. (Editor's Note: The second part of Mrs. Arens story will appear in tomorrow's Riviera-Times.) This is the first in a series of stories about interesting Coral Gables neighbors.
Dewey's
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Santa Knows His Labels . . .
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