In the midst of the guerrilla war between the people of Bondowoso and the Dutch colonial forces, 100 men were arrested on suspicion of being revolutionaries.

The men where stuffed into 3 railway cars headed from the Bondowoso train station to the Kalisosok Prison in Surabaya, about 250 kilometers away because of alleged overcrowding at the local jail.

The sealed cars, made of timber and corrugated iron, allowed little oxygen and created an extreme heat.

[1] Based on the testimony of one of the survivors, when the train stopped at sidings along the 16-hour journey, the prisoners hit the walls and shouted for food and water.

The monument consists of two parts, a railway car and a statue representing the hundred prisoners of the Gerbong Maut.