Cemetery
Initially the dead were buried in the cemetery at Kuching. The high death rate meant that this was soon filled, however, and in November 1942 a new cemetery area was created next to the camp at an area to the south-east known as "Boot Hill". The cemetery was within sight of the camp. At first the dead were buried in coffins, but soon the number of fatalities and the shortage of timber meant that shrouds made from rice sacks or blankets were used instead. The bodies were carried to the grave in a wooden coffin with a hinged bottom, which allowed re-use.
Hilda Bates wrote in June 1945: "I am horrified at the increased number of graves in the burial ground. Deaths are now so frequent, that a party of grave diggers is now permanently employed, and given extra rations in order that they will have the strength to dig".
After liberation the bodies were exhumed from the cemetery and sent to Labuan for reburial in a central military cemetery there. A large number of the graves of prisoners from Batu Lintang now at Labuan are unidentified: after the Japanese surrender Suga destroyed many camp records. The cemetery in Labuan is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Read more about this topic: Batu Lintang Camp
Famous quotes containing the word cemetery:
“The cemetery isn’t really a place to make a statement.”
—Mary Elizabeth Baker, U.S. cemetery committee head. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 15 (June 13, 1988)
“I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.”
—John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla)