They called it the Devil's House. Not because of ghosts or hauntings, but because of what happened inside its walls - families hiding in darkness, children forbidden from speaking their own language, entire communities smuggled through corridors so thick with fear that the building itself seemed cursed. Gedung Setan stands in downtown Surabaya, a colonial relic built by the Dutch East India Company in 1809, its half-meter walls enclosing a history that Indonesia's official narratives have rarely acknowledged. For more than seven decades, Chinese-Indonesian families have lived here, generation after generation, in a building that sheltered their grandparents when the world outside wanted them dead.
The building began as a seat of colonial power. The VOC constructed it in 1809 as a governor's office, its thick Dutch walls and imposing facade projecting authority over the port city of Surabaya. For more than a century it served various administrative functions, changing hands as colonial power shifted. Then, in 1945, a Chinese doctor and businessman named Dr. Teng Khoen Gwan purchased the building. His original plan was to open a Chinese funeral home. History had other ideas. Three years later, when the Indonesian National Armed Forces clashed with the Communist Party of Indonesia in the Madiun Affair of 1948, Chinese families suddenly found themselves targeted. Dr. Teng transformed his funeral home into a refugee shelter. The building designed to house colonial bureaucrats began housing the persecuted instead.
The worst came after the 30 September Movement of 1965. As Suharto's New Order took shape, Chinese-Indonesians across the archipelago were accused of harboring sympathies for the Chinese Communist Party. In Surabaya, where the majority of the Chinese community had been supporters of Sukarno, the accusation was doubly dangerous. Between 1965 and 1966, as mass killings swept Indonesia and claimed an estimated 500,000 to one million lives, a second wave of refugees poured into Gedung Setan. They came in darkness, slipping through the city's streets to reach walls thick enough to muffle what happened inside. The building earned its name during these years. The people who coined it - neighbors, passersby, those on the outside - saw a crumbling mansion where isolated figures moved behind shuttered windows, cut off from education, from language, from ordinary life. Gedung Setan: the Devil's House.
The architecture tells its own story. Dutch colonial buildings were built to last, with walls approaching 50 centimeters thick - designed for tropical heat and European permanence. Inside Gedung Setan, forty chambers that once served as offices have been converted into residences, each one home to a family. The original blueprints have been lost; neither the Indonesian nor Dutch government holds records of the building's design. What remains is the structure itself, adapted and readapted across generations. Hallways that once echoed with administrative orders now carry the sounds of daily life. Children who were once hidden from view now walk openly up the stairs. The building resists easy categorization - part heritage site, part apartment complex, part living memorial to what its residents survived.
In the twenty-first century, Gedung Setan sits on commercially valuable land in central Surabaya. Developers have tried repeatedly to acquire the property, hoping to convert the site into a marketplace. The roughly 53 families who live there have refused every attempt. They are honoring the wishes of Dr. Teng Khoen Gwan, whose act of turning a funeral home into a refuge remains the building's defining purpose. The community inside has changed with the decades. Intermarriage between Tionghoa, Javanese, Madurese, and other ethnic groups has blurred the lines that once marked residents as targets. During Chinese New Year, families decorate the hallways and common areas. Church groups visit for charity events. In 2013, the Surabaya municipal administration declared Gedung Setan a cultural heritage site - a formal acknowledgment that what happened behind these walls matters, even if it complicates the stories Indonesia tells about itself.
Gedung Setan sits at 7.28S, 112.73E in central Surabaya, East Java. The nearest major airport is Juanda International (WARR/SUB), approximately 20 km to the south. The building is not easily distinguishable from the air among Surabaya's dense urban fabric, but the city's grid pattern and the Kalimas River provide useful orientation references. Expect tropical conditions with high humidity year-round. Best viewed at lower altitudes during clear weather.