Concurrently with the German occupation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and styled themselves as anti-colonial liberators.

Militarymen and colonial administrators, Dutch civilians who were resident in Indonesia, as well as mixed-race people were put in concentration camps where many were enslaved, raped, tortured and killed arbitrarily. In addition to that, many native Indonesians — specifically the Javanese — were taken as slaves and forced labourers (called romusha) for the Japanese war effort and almost 300k Indonesians were sent abroad to other Japanese occupied territories to build infrastructure projects like the Burma-Siam (Myanmar-Thailand) railway. The death rate for romusha labourers sent to other Japanese occupied territories is estimated to be around 80%.

The UN estimates that 4 million people including over 30k Europeans died during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, the causes of death range from being killed or worked to death to famine caused by the occupation.

The Dutch government was never able to reestablish control over Indonesia. Beforehand anti-colonial sentiment was quite small compared to British India or French colonies, but the Japanese encouraged Indonesian nationalism and dismantled the Dutch administration which led to Indonesian National Revolution and the repatriation of Dutch and mixed race people and the official recognition of Indonesian independence in 1949.