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Nothing as human as a soldier in foreign territory. Send him to a distant place where he has to deal with tension and fear during military actions without friends, family or distraction to solace him, and he will look for relaxation and comfort in the form of love with nearby girls. Many military no doubt start relationships or sexual contact with locals. This website is about Dutch soldiers who were fighting a colonial war in Indonesia in the years 1946-1949, and had romantic affairs with Indonesian women.
The project Warlovechildren is about love in wartime. In the period 1946-1949 many Dutch soldiers maintained sexual contacts with Indonesian girls. It was not uncommon that these relationships ended up with a child. It is estimated that the Dutch army fathered several thousands of children during the colonial war in Indonesia. Most of this Indonesian offspring has never had contact with their Dutch fathers ever after, though many of them kept searching for them all their lives. The unknown lifestories of these warlovechildren, their Indonesian mothers and their Dutch fathers are brought together on this website.
After the final Independancy of Indonesia in 1949, the majority of the Dutch soldiers returned back home, leaving behind their Indonesian lovers and children. What happened with all of them? The website Warlovechild gives all these people involved a voice by providing them a platform to tell their stories and get in touch with each other. Little is known yet. Their stories were never heard and due to the enormous taboos, one did not talk about it those days. Back home the Dutch fathers took care not to talk about their withheld children (supposed they knew at all that they fathered a child). The Indonesian mothers too had problems talking about their relationships with Dutch soldiers, and the child they got from their Dutch lovers. And even the Indonesian children themselves, growing up as half bloods in the Indonesian society, did not dare to ask their mothers or speak out loud. The subject always remained a taboo. There are no publications or research on this subject at all: Dutch troops who fathered half-Dutch children in Indonesia. Yet there are plenty of examples of fathers or their Dutch offspring who went looking for their withheld kin, now over sixty, who still hope to find their fathers or there Dutch half brothers and sisters.
The colonial war in Dutch East Indies, the Netherlands's largest war effort, has left deep scars both in Indonesia and the Netherlands. The existence of children, fathered by Dutch soldiers, never received serious attention and has been concealed up till now. Many fathers, in the final phase of their lives, start revealing their secret now. Sometimes the burden of the secrecy seems to heavy to carry. Some of them are looking for their withheld child, eager to meet him or her before it is too late. Is the Dutch society not morally obliged to help those who want to learn to know their offspring to in their search? And what about help for the children, who never learned to know their fathers or Dutch family? And is not the time now to face up to the fact that there is a collective phenomenon, instead of many individual problems?
This site
The fact that soldiers father children in warzones, is timeless. Yet there is no scientific literature or research available on Dutch soldiers who fathered children in foreign territory, in this case Indonesia. Neither in scientific literature nor on websites or with contact organisations such as Veteran Organizations, the phenomenon is mentioned. This site contributes to the bringing together of family members who lost sight of each other or just have never known of each others existence. By collecting their stories, we will get more insight into the phenomenon of wartime love.
On this site you can read about the personal quests of warlovechildren, daddy soldiers, soldier sweethearts, the memories of veterans and the questions and answers of relatives and next-of-kin. Would you like to extend the website with your story? If you send us an email with your contact details to
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, we will contact you. In the section "Your search" you can write your own story. By doing this you can share with peers and others, and start a call to seek and find relatives in Indonesia or the Netherlands
In the Media
The national media paid ample attention to the launch of this website about this unknown or withheld category of war victims: the warlovechildren, soldiers sweethearts and daddy soldiers. We will continue to draw attention to the media for this, whenever considered necessary.
The founders of Warlovechild also directed and produced a long documentary on this subject, based on the stories of the warlovechildren and a few fathers and mothers, whom we interviewed extensively. This documentary "Tuan Papa" (Sir Daddy) was aired on July 1, 2010 on the Dutch national broadcast channel Ned.2. The documentary is available on DVD, with subtitles in Dutch, Indonesian and English. You can order a DVD here or you can send an email to
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.
Gathering information on this still unexplored area of research has been made possible by support of the program of the War Heritage of the Ministry of Health. The extensive oral history interviews we held, will serve as source material for further research.
On behalf of the entire team,
Annegriet Wietsma
Stef Scagliola
Jean Hellwig |
The documentary
