Ereveld ancol, the first ereveld.

After almost a year ago, when I visited Ereveld Menteng Pulo, now I visit the other Ereveld in Jakarta. It is located in Ancol and actually the first Ereveld in Indonesia from 7 others (two in Jakarta, one in Cimahi, one in Bandung, two in Semarang, and one in Surabaya).

Just to remind our reader, this is the Ereveld Menteng Pulo.

I wrote about Ereveld Menteng Pulo last year in our blog, you can read it here:
http://www.shrayaresidence.com/shraya-kulture/july-20th-2014

Right then.. back to Ereveld Ancol.

Once again, I met a friendly and communicative superintendent (opzichter) of this ereveld, Mr. Dicky, just like the caretaker in Menteng Pulo, Mr. Eliza, he too a good tour guide. He shows around the place with detail explaination the history of ereveld Ancol.

The graveyard has 1456 graves (if I’m not mistaken) but has more than 2000 bodies that got buried here.

Ereveld Ancol was established in September 1946. This is the first cemetery of the Dutch army and Indonesian (who is pro-Dutch) that got killed or executed by the Japanese back in colonization era. The layout of the graveyard is rectangular and divided lengthwise by a main path that leads to a monument.

At the right of the entrance is a pendopo. Where visitors can write their names on the guest book and listen to the superintendent’s explanation of the history of ereveld Ancol while sit down and sheltered from the sun. Keep in mind, Ancol is a beach area plus the hot weather.

The entrance gate is on the far left (not showed in this picture). On the left is a pendopo for guest take shelter. The cemetery is on the right side.

There is one corner, if you standing from the pendopo facing to the monument, on the right side, you’ll see a tree that appears only its trunk without any leaves. That spot is where 200 people (Dutch and local) got executed by the Japanese during Japan colonization 1942. These 200 executed people were buried on the place where they built the monument.

Hemelboom (tree of heaven) with semi-circular stone bench. A text plaque with a poem by Laurence Benyon "For the Fallen".

Below the monument where they buried the 200 executed people.

The uniqueness of this place is, if you standing on the conblock. Right on that level. You are actually standing 50 cm below the sea level.  So, when the rain season come, the pump inside that house on the left is working to pump out the water that rising from the sewer to the wall you see in the picture. -SK-

The small house on the end of this conblock is a pump house to pump water to the other side of the high wall on the back of the house if flood happen in rain season.

Ereveld Ancol