Dutch-Indonesian Community

Hello everyone, I just made cosmetic change in the website. This website now has a twitter account. Follow us to get the latest updates of Dutch-Indonesian Community on twitter.

Hello everyone, just recently we got news that Dorothy Read, author of book “End of Silence” was interviewed in Idaho Public Television at 3 June 2010:

The account of one East Dutch Indies family’s survival during World War II and the Indonesian Revolution is the subject of this edition of Dialogue.

Joan Cartan-Hansen interviews sisters Ilse Evelijn Veere Smit and Edith Evelijn Veere, who survived the two atrocities, as well as author Dorothy Read, who helps Ilse tell her family’s story in the new book End the Silence.

The sisters lived through the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies in 1942 and the revolution in the war’s aftermath and talk about their lives during those turbulent times.

After the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies in 1942, 9-year-old Ilse, her mother and siblings were sent to a concentration camp. Tortured by her captors, Ilse survived the war only to see her family become targets of Indonesian revolutionaries determined to wipe out Dutch colonialists. How Ilse survived a war and a revolution became a family secret, not to be discussed until now as Read documents the story in their book.

The story told in End the Silence is a little known yet relevant piece of World War II, an addition to the tragic sagas of Europe’s concentration camps and the interment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. It is a piece of history that belongs to a world audience, as it exposes the iniquity and indignities suffered by people interned in the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia.

Please visit this page to download the video/audio file.

Hello everyone, I would like to inform you that The Indo Project’s website is up and running.

The Indo Project is dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and celebration of Indo culture and history through education and raising public awareness.

People of mixed European and Indonesian ancestry, in particular, those of Dutch and Indonesian ancestry are called Indos, Dutch-Indonesians, or Indo-Europeans. Their origins date back over 350 years to the Spice Islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

We are thrilled to have you visit our website to learn more about our project. The Indo Project serves as a portal between the academic world and the experiential world.

Tong Tong Fair just got coverage in Jakarta Globe. This is archive of the original news which could be found here.

Posted by Priscillia @ Indo Forum:

New Film Project “Buitenkampers”. The Dutch Film Foundation that produced the documentary of interviews of people that were in the Japanese Concentration Camps 1942-1946. http://japanseburgerkampen.org is now looking for stories of individuals that spent the war years in Indonesia OUTSIDE the camps during the war years. If your parents and/or grandparents were any of these people and are interested, go to this page. If pages are in Dutch, click on the British Flag for the English version.

Another article about Dutch-Indonesian identity. Original article is from here.

Hi, an update from Dutch-Indonesian group regarding The Indo Project:

High-Resolution Photos Wanted for Web Site: The Indo Project web site is being developed. We will have a fading in/out photo slideshow, but the quality of the photos need to be at least 250 dpi high-res. If you’d like to submit a photo please send to biancacc@yahoo.com. The slideshow will feature Indos and Indo-related subjects and can be changed and varied

If you have photos of your families (grandfather, etc) during Dutch East Indies, you could contribute in this project by allowing the team to use your photos.

Hi everyone, just recently Mike was interviewed by Jakarta Post regarding the The Indo Project. This post is an archive of the article as usual, you could read the news here.

Just recently bought this book from Periplus for $6. This is story about a rich dutchman of French heritage, lived in Jatinegara in late 19th century. This is not book about eurasian, but it’s still useful to see the social life among dutch, eurasian, and indonesians in the dutch east indies. The author, Edward du Perron was born in Dutch East Indies. He was probaby best classified as Creoles, the european people who was born in Dutch East Indies.

Charles Edgar du perron was born in Java 1899, his parents, the only son of french-dutch descent. Even though he was Dutch, the author is remoted from friends at his age, so his friends were only the native children.

Part of this book describing his life in Dutch east Indies as boy, and the others living in Europe as man. It’s like visiting the past and its people, looked through glass of dutch, like how the young boy was very close with his guardian angel Alima (an indigenous), and how he was taught by mistress/teachers of eurasian and dutch background.

For these who are looking for dutch east indies literature, I recommend you to pick this one, though I must admit I’m too lazy to read anything not related of his life in dutch east indies. I skipped the first chapters or anything about his life in Europe, because I only see this book as reference about life and social reality in the Dutch East Indies.

There has been a pretty serious discussion over “Bersiap” in the Dutch-Indonesian facebook group. As average Indonesians who were taught in Indonesian schools and reading Indonesian history books, I was very surprised when hearing about “Bersiap”. Many 1st generations of Dutch-Indonesians probably traumatized by this event, but until today, no single book in Indonesian history books mentioned about this tragedy.

This is another fact that is hidden from public’s consciousness. Apparently Dutch Indonesians history has been effectively removed from the timeline of Indonesian history. We are thought of being non-existant.

For these who unaware of Bersiap, this is google translation of dutch Wikipedia which still does not exist in english or Indonesian wikipedia:

The Bersiap period was a violent period in Indonesian history that lasted from about October 1945 until early 1946. After the capitulation of Japan on August 14, 1945 created a power vacuum in the former Dutch East Indies.

Political activists seized the opportunity to colonial ties with the Netherlands on August 17, 1945 and break the independence of Indonesia was proclaimed by Sukarno and Hatta. In fact, Sukarno was kidnapped by activists (most students) and in his home on East Pegangsaan successfully put under pressure to the Republic of Indonesia to declare. Preparations for the proclamation of the R.I. had obviously started much earlier. Almost all political parties in Dutch East Indies (the PNI and the PKI, the Parindra etc.) did not wish the return of Dutch rule.

With political pressure had Sukarno, Hatta and others where the Japanese force that had an Indonesian army was formed (the Peta = Pembela Tanah Air) but that no firearms had been trained by Japanese instructors.

There was also, more or less organized into a model communist cell structure, a nation force launched the so called “groups Banteng (Banteng one is a buffalo). The armament was sober, she was a machete (a daily tool, each ethnic group varied in shape and size, in virtually the entire archipelago) and the bamboo-runcing (runcing = spear) in a one point cut bamboo pole of about 2 meter long. The argument to the Japanese occupation to the creation of these military and paramilitary groups were: the Japanese troops to support a possible Allied invasion. It is obvious that these paramilitary militias very much violent, predatory elements were.

When the Netherlands have tried to restore authority over the archipelago came to a number of places to violence, in particular among Indo-Europeans and Chinese probably thousands of deaths. In large parts of Sumatra, the indigenous people’s heads off in a very violent manner. The latter is the historical significance of the Bersiap period.

Settlers of pure Dutch descent (totok) were still in Japanese internment camps (Japanese camp), the Japanese designated as protected areas, making them among relatively few casualties. In contrast, for many the liberation almost one years later only took place when they were “exchanged” or liberated by British-Indian troops (especially the Ghurka’s). Presumably, most victims (hundreds) of cases in Surabaya, just before the outright war between the British army and the brand new republic broke.

The organization of the “forces” showed little consistency. The communication between all groups / cells was extremely low: the fixed telephone network was neglected and there were no mobile phones. Effective communication in the city were the lampposts. It then hit with a piece of iron on the lampposts in the cries of the “battle cry”. Great Awakening was the battle cry of the very many nationalist Indonesian youth (Pamoeda’s) in the Indonesian revolution. The two meanings are “Be prepared!” and “shun”. Literally it means: “Get ready” (Bersiap). This course was very effective for the muster of large masses, she was also very / too broad and unfocused content.

The killings were facilitated by the fierce propaganda radio broadcasts from the station “Radio Pemberontak” which openly called for “elimination of all programs Belanda (Dutch) and all Anjing’s Belanda (the dogs of the Dutch), that the Eurasians were intended. The Indonesian Minister Shahrir called for an end to the violence.
In 2005 the Dutch government was still the date August 17, 1945 recognized as the official beginning of the independence of Indonesia.

Ironic, isn’t it? There is yet study to measure and estimate the victims that died during atrocity. Inez Hollander’s book, Silenced Voice is probably a good reference if you are looking for victim’s testimony. Many members of Dutch-Indonesian Community also voiced similar opinion, it was the worst time of Dutch-Indonesian, yet almost no people bothered to investigate this.

It’s like a Jewish who forgot their ancestors were victim of Holocaust or Chinese Indonesians who forgot the decades of discrimination from Soeharto.

If you opinion to be shared, join the discussion here.