Message from Tetty

To all who have contributed to or are interested in the outcome of

the quest of Tetty Sahusilawane to her father:

please read this article.

An intensive quest

After the death of her mother in 1971 Tetty started the search for her white father. Her mother had never told her about her biological father. Most of the information she received from a friend of her mother, her godmother Cos Ferdinandus.
in Indonesia Tetty could not find any information about her father. In 1983 she went to the Netherlands for the first time to find out the personal details of her father in Dutch archives with help of family and to meet him. The only thing she knew, told by her stepfather, was his name, Hendrik Nicolaas de Graaf,  and that he had served as a Dutch soldier in Medan between 1946 and 1949. He served in the Genie as a radio telegrapher. In 1949 he was probably in Yogyakarta and then sent to Makassar and New Guinea.
This H.N. de Graaf would also be the father of Tetty’s older brother, Hengky, who was born in 1948 in Medan. Father De Graaf said Hengky had to be named after his father and Tetty to his mother Geertruida Bosman.
Furthermore Tetty knew that her father had a friend, Cor Schaafsma, also a Dutch soldier, who had a relationship with her godmother Ferdinandus at that time.
When soldier H.N. de Graaf had returned to the Netherlands, he has probably attempted twice to send the mother of Tetty a package. The packages have arrived in Medan but Tetty’s mother and the children had already left for Ambon and did not receive the packages. Schaafsma also has sent a letter from a small town in Friesland, Winsum, where he lived with his parents, to Cos Ferdinandus. This letter reached Cos, it is still in the family. These were the last contacts. Nothing is known about the residence of the De Graaf and Schaafsma, no details are known.

In 1999, a veteran read a call about Tetty’s quest in a magazine for veterans. He got in touch and stated that he had met a veteran named De Graaf and had learned that this man fathered two children during his service there, with a babu in Medan Through the Foundation Services to Veterans they have tried to send a letter to this man. He however denied to be the wanted father and therefore his data were never handed over to Tetty.

Many inquiries in Dutch archives, in municipalities and institutions failed to deliver the desired result. Without a known date of birth and place of birth of the searched De Graaf, it would be very special if he was found. Journalist Louis Kelckhoven posted on 29-11-2011 an extensive article with photo of Tetty in the Newspaper of the North in which her search for her father was extensively described. Tetty had come to the Netherlands for the 22nd time in her search for her father. This article has called various reaction including the offer of some readers to help in the investigation of the father of Tetty.
These researchers soon found information about the now deceased Cor Schaafsma and made contact with his son who was willing to cooperate with the investigation by giving the diary and photos from the service period of his father in Medan. Unfortunately, it turned out that nothing in the albums of Cor Schaafsma hinted to Hendrik de Graaf. This new track to find her father proved a dead end, there was no proof of a friendship between them.
A moving interview in 2012 with Tetty in Jakarta by Annegriet Wietsma that was posted on this website WarLoveChild did not arouse any more information, and also Spoorloos was a dead end.

Due to the large and long-term commitment of all researchers, the participation of veterans and information from the Min. v. Defence finally another De Graaf was found. After a new call in a magazine two veterans reported that during a veterans meeting in The Hague a fellow veteran, mr. J. Th. J. De Graaf had told them that he had fathered two children by a babu in Medan. He also said that his current wife was not aware of it. Tetty was convinced that this was her father.
Of this De Graaf an address was known. When one of the researchers wanted to contact him, it showed that he was deceased. However, his widow appeared to be willing to check the various pictures from the photo album of Schaafsma to see if her husband was on one of the pictures. It turned out not to be so and that was consistent with the earlier conclusion from the data of Schaafsma. It also revealed that this De Graaf did not have a mother named Geertruida Bosman. The widow referred the researcher to her daughter who had many pictures of her deceased husband; this included photos from his service in Medan.
The daughter was willing to give the researcher a picture of her father. This photo was shown to Tetty’s older half-sister in Jakarta. This older sister recognized with conviction the father of Hengky and Tetty. A closer look to his military service period made clear that this De Graaf had served between 1946 and early 1950 at the Genie in Medan.

Bingo?

The researchers found that the information provided by Tetty about her father on several details differed from the data of the found military J. Th. J. de Graaf.
However, there was a similarity in the photos of De Graaf with her brother Hengky and the recognition by the half-sister of Tetty, who had met him several times at their mother’s house in the kampong where he often came to visit the mother. Based on all this, sometimes not matching, information, it was considered necessary to have established whether there is a family relationship between Tetty and the daughter of this De Graaf by means of a DNA test.
It was very painful for the daughter of De Graaf to realize that her father could possibly have fathered two children in Indonesia. She agreed to participate in a DNA test to make things clear, but said not to feel the need to get in touch with the possible children of her father in Indonesia if the test results would be positive.

The technically successful DNA test showed no relationship between her and Tetty. This result was unexpected for Tetty and the researchers. Also, this result was very disappointing because now it is not conclusively established that  J. Th. J. de Graaf is the father of Hengky and Tetty.

For Tetty only her conviction counts: she found her father. For the researchers, there are no new evidences to keep on going researching further.

With the above brief description of the investigation and its outcome, I hope to have informed sufficiently all those who contributed to this investigation. In any way, on Tetty’s behalf I want to thank you very much for your contribution and interest.

Henk van Nus

Please also read the story of Tetty on this website: ‘I visited the Netherlands twenty-one times in search for my father’. Category Stories – Warlovechildren in Indonesia.