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Seventeen larger-than-life, slender figures: men, women and children. With these, sculptor Jaroslawa Dankowa has expressed the grief of the victims of the Japanese occupation of the former Dutch East Indies during the Second World War. Between 1942, the beginning of the Japanese occupation of what is now Indonesia, and Japan's capitulation on 15 August 1945, 16,800 civilian prisoners and 8,500 prisoners of war died in the internment camps or during forced labour on the railway lines in Southeast Asia.

In 1986, the Indisch Monument Foundation was established to create a memorial to commemorate these victims. Artists were invited to submit designs. From 33 submissions, the foundation, in consultation with the municipality of The Hague, chose the design by this Bulgarian-born sculptor who lives and works in the city.

Dankowa applied the map of Indonesia on a white marble base. On top of it she placed the seventeen figures. In the middle of the sculpture group, several deceased victims are piled up. On either side of them are mourners, whose posture and gestures underline the immense grief. There is also a man with a raised, clenched fist. With this, Dankowa wants to refer to the resistance that also existed. The figures have been given a rack as a background. This is to represent their solidarity.

The Indisch Monument, which bears the title 'The Spirit Conquers', is not, incidentally, Dankowa's only sculpture in The Hague. However, the Indisch Monument is her most monumental and impressive.
The Indisch Monument was unveiled by Queen Beatrix on August 15, 1988. In 1995 an Indisch bell was added. The bell emphasises that the viewer at the monument is standing in a sacred place. A commemoration is held every year on August 15.