Rebuttal

We understand that there were more than 2000 Dutch victims of all the Hellships and that engraving only the names of 38 of the Nitimei Maru is not fair for those other victims. The Dutch War Memorial Foundation is working on a plan to place all the 2000 names at the Junyo Maru Monument at the Military Cemetery Leuwigajah in Cimahi, West Java. See http://www.ogs.nl/docs/222030_Leuwigajah.pdf However, Action Group Nitimei Maru 38, believes and is supported by the design of the present Burma-Siam Railway Monument and to which they had no input, that the Nitimei Maru victims in its memorial are inseparable from the victims of the Burma-Siam Railroad construction. This fits in the broad thinking of the Burma-Siam Railway Committee, indicated by their association on their website with the victims of the Pakan Baru Railway construction located several degrees south and not in the same period of the Burma-Siam Railroad construction and without the linkage to the 38 victims. We feel further justified in our action by a recent email of a wellknown Dutch WW2 Veteran, Frits Bakker, who is a survivor of the Burma Railroad construction in which he wrote to the webmaster of Indisch4Ever website that the 38 names do belong at the Burma-Siam Railroad Monument. " Of course I support your action" was the short and resolute sounding answer of the Octogenarian Pieter Hutzezon of Beverwijk Netherlands, when we called him on April 21 and ask him for his support of our action. Pieter is one of the living survivors of the Nitimei Maru bombardment and the Burma railroad construction. "My name is Ingrid Ferns and I live in Portland Oregon. I'm the oldest daughter of the late survivor of the sinking of the Nitimei Maru and consequent Burma railroad construction, my father Willie Ferns. If my father, Willie Ferns, ex- KNIL military and paratrooper, was still alive he would have wholeheartedly supported this effort to put the names of the 38 victims on the Memorial Wall. Especially if one of those names, Hans Waldemar Adalbert von Stockhausen, is his father in law. My father was happily married to his daughter Anna von Stockhausen (my mother) until his death in 1971 and she and my father had 6 daughters and 2 sons". Presently the Action Group Nitimei Maru 38 is receiving signed affidavits from familymembers of the 38 victims which we have been able to locate, in support of our efforts. The search for family members is continuing. During this signature drive, non-relatives of the 38, symphatised with our action and offered spontaneously to sign the affidavit of support also.