This article asks why the victims of the 1944–45 famine in Indonesia’s main island of Java are largely missing from Indonesia’s public memory and historiography. It surveys relevant studies, to conclude that there is no consensus on the human toll of the famine. The article then traces the origins of an initial estimate of four million mentioned by Indonesia’s authorities to data on mortality and births uncovered in late 1945. It discusses the outcomes of a recent study that analysed these data to re-estimate excess deaths of, respectively, 0.7 and 1.2 million during 1944 and 1945. The difference with the initial estimate is that it also included unborn children and an unsubstantiated approximation of victims in 1946. The article analyses the likely reasons why the millions of victims of the famine went missing from Indonesia’s public memory and historiography during the 1950s and 1960s.

中文翻译：

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数百万人失踪：印度尼西亚史学中的爪哇 1944-45 年饥荒

本文询问为何 1944-45 年印度尼西亚主爪哇岛饥荒的受害者在印度尼西亚的公众记忆和史学中很大程度上缺失了。它调查了相关研究，得出的结论是，对于饥荒造成的人员伤亡，尚未达成共识。然后，本文追溯了印度尼西亚当局提到的 400 万人的初步估计数与 1945 年末发现的死亡率和出生率数据的渊源。文章讨论了最近一项研究的结果，该研究分析了这些数据，分别重新估计了超额死亡人数： 1944 年和 1945 年期间分别有 0.7 和 120 万。与最初估计的不同之处在于，它还包括未出生的儿童和 1946 年未经证实的受害者近似值。文章分析了印度尼西亚公众中数百万饥荒受害者失踪的可能原因20世纪50年代和1960年代的记忆和史学。