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A week ago, in August 2011, my mother called me with the words: "There is a child in Indonesia, from your father." She had just heard it from a cousin who was visiting her. I've always felt that there was something peculiar about my father’s military service period in Indonesia, and now it suddenly became a reality. It probably is a boy. Since this telephone call, I am looking for my half-brother.
The story of Dora and the search for her half-brother
Love affair
My father left on Oct. 3, 1946 as an OVW (war volunteer) with the ship The Tegelberg to the Dutch Indies. Two months before his departure, in August 1946, my father and mother had married. My mother got pregnant right away, and my sister was born while my father served oversees.
My father was a sergeant in the 7th December Division, in the A-Company 3.9. R.I. They had been trained in England, and then sailed on to the Dutch Indies. He came back home in November 1949. Immediately after his return, I was conceived and came to this world September 1950. After me another two girls and a boy were born.
My father never talked much with us about his time in the Dutch Indies. It had been a difficult, traumatic time for him. My father even seems to have visited a psychiatrist overthere. He has never told my mom himself, but a service mate had written this to his parents, which was briefed again to my mother.
My mother knew that my father had had a brief affaire overthere. He had confessed to her in one of his letters. My father came from a strict Calvinist family. A divorce would have been a disgrace in those days.
My father had once told my mom that he had been considering to take away a boy from Indonesia to bring to the Netherlands. He also had a picture of that boy, it was hidden in his diary. My mother knew that photograph, but the boy in that picture was a few years old. So she thought: ‘that child can never be his’. And she had pushed this thought away for the rest of her life.
Everyone knew, except for us
I've always been puzzled that my father had wanted to take that little boy to the Netherlands. He was not very fond of children. Why would he have considered to take an unknown child back home? He even seems to have consulted my grandmother, but she had adviced him not to do it.
When my grandmother was dying, I felt that she wanted to tell me something. But my aunt did not leave us alone, and so it did not happen. Now I think it must have been about this child.
It seems that everyone in the family knew about the child, except for my mother. Her cousin sometimes heard her parents talk about it when she was a child. And my father himself has also hoped my mother knew, I think. In 1970, my parents split. The day my father said goodbye, he patted my mother on her head and said: "I'm glad you've never talked about it." We thought it was about the cheating. But maybe my dad had been thinking all the time: she knows, she has understood it without really mentioning it.
Unfortunately my mother has not kept letters from that time. My father wrote a diary during his service time, and my mom once secretly had been reading in it. But after their divorce my father took it with him, just like his photo album. I have only 4 pictures of my father in his military uniform.
My father is still alive
When my mother had called me by phone about the existence of a half-brother, I immediately surfed to this site and have been reading all night. That same night I viewed your film Sir Daddy (Tuan Papa). I am very emotional. I find it hard to carry this weight and would like to have emotional support. My mom does not like that I am searching for my half-brother. My sisters do not know either. My parents are both still living, both 89 years. My oldest sister has contact with my father and not with my mother. I myself have only contact with my mother and not with my dad. Maybe I will soon have the courage to visit my father, when he becomes 90. Then I can ask him about his child, my Indonesian half-brother. I'm not sure if I dare. But what I do know: if my half-brother is found, the first plane to Indonesia is for me, although I only have a small pension. I am so eager to meet him...
(Name and contact information of Dora are known by the editors of Warlovechild.org)
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The documentary
