The Past is a Foreign Country portrays a holocaust of sorts--one not well known outside the community it affected--a community that is now in danger of extinction. The book gives evidence to the internment experience of former colonials, both Dutch, European, and mixed-race, in Indonesia under the Japanese during World War II. Those giving testimony include the unknown writer of a graphic novel; selected cartoons drawn by a boy once interned; an account of another boy's experience in the camps; an account of a young girl's experience living outside the camps; and access to a film that documents life outside the camps. In addition, Berg and de Vroom, whose family members suffered the internment and its aftermath, share their experiences.

The Past is a Foreign Country by Michael Berg and Theresia de Vroom 

A Short History of Events Leading Up to the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia by Jan A. Krancher

Overview of Imprisonment Experience by Andrew A. van Dijk 

Interview with Wouter Keus: A Boy Survivor by Theresia de Vroom 

Illustrations of a Childhood Wartime Internment by Andrew A. van Dijk 

My Camp Not by Hitler but by M.G. Hartley

My Childhood War Remembrances of Life Outside the Camps by Theresia Weber Makhuli

Selected Bibliography, Filmography, and Online Materials 

Buiten-kampers: De verzwegen geschiedenis van Nederlands-Indië (The Color of Survival: How World War II Uprooted the Indo Dutch) Directed and Written by Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich 

Appendix I: Chronological Summary of Events in the Former Dutch East Indies 

Appendix II: Mortality Statistics of Civilian Internees 

"A precious testimony that in poignant images and personal accounts reconstructs a forgotten chapter in the history of crimes against humanity. Michael Berg and Theresia de Vroom recover invaluable voices of survivors in a harrowing and unique search for truth about what their own family members endured in Indonesia."

Alicia Partnoy, Author, Professor, & Activist (One of thousands of "disappeared" sent to detention camps by the Argentinian military dictatorship in the 1970s)

"This is an essential book, a must read for everyone in our "mass incarceration" nation. Prison, whether it is in Indonesia, Abu Ghraib, or LA County Jail, is always about control, humiliation, and the diminishment of one's humanity. This is a beautiful story about heroes who rise above that experience with grace, resilience, and most of all humor."

Jeff Dietrich, Catholic Worker & Writer (who has served more than 40 terms in jail as a Civil Disobedience Activist)

"This heart wrenching story of suffering and struggle told through the vivid memories of the survivors of atrocities in Japanese concentration camps during WWII in Indonesia shows that man's inhumanity to man can be revealed through the human capacity to remember. The silenced victims of Japanese cruelty and inhumanity find a powerful voice in this book."

Alemayehu G. Mariam, Professor & Human Rights Activist (Specializing in American Constitutional law, civil liberties, and human rights)

Michael J. Berg is a Professor of Mathematics at Loyola Marymount University. His primary areas of teaching and research are algebra and number theory (especially analytic methods vis-a-vis higher reciprocity laws), and non-Archimedean Fourier analysis. Berg received his Ph.D. from UC San Diego 1985 and his B. A. from UC Los Angeles in 1978. He joined the LMU faculty in 1989. Among other things, he is an instructor of the martial art of Judo. He lives in Westchester, California with his wife, Barbara Berg, their six children, and one dog.

Theresia de Vroom is Professor of English and Director of the Marymount Institute for Faith, Culture and the Arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. She has edited and translated the medieval Netherlandic plays of the Hulthelm MS and was the editor and compiler for In Possession of Shakespeare: Writing Into Nothing. She has written articles on medieval women mystics, beast epics, medieval and Renaissance drama and poetry. In 1998 she was the recipient of the Lois P. and Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in Teaching.