|
A week after he and his fiancee had broken their engagement by mail, Henk took a stroll through the streets around the barracks in Semarang. Suddenly he stood face to face with a nice girl. Less than an hour later they were together in bed in her shack.
Entering the army as a virgin
End of 1945 I registered as a soldier to Indonesia. I had uncles living there and we then were convinced that we had to liberate them from the Japs. I was engaged for one year when I left. I had wanted to marry before leaving but my girl did not feel like it. ‘If you get killed I’m stuck with a child of a dead soldier.’ She really did not want that. So I was a virgin when I entered the army.
Early 1946 I was stationed in Semarang. It was tough. Only a few months later, already four of my mates had disappeared, killed during patrols in the village. I also shot some people, at least twice. It was him or me. We went through a lot, young men just over 20 years of age. But it was part of the deal.
My fiancee wanted to dance
My fiancee in the Netherlands wrote me in one of her letters that her mother did not allow her to dance because I was fighting in the Dutch East Indies. "If I must choose between a fiancee and dancing, then I'd rather dance." she wrote. I do not know if she really meant this but I broke off the relationship. A week later I was strolling through the village near the barracks and I saw that girl. Well, then all went fast. One minute we were talking, the next moment we were in her shack. And so it happened again the following week. I had never seen a naked woman, I could hardly grasp what happened to me!
That must have been sometime in April or May 1946.
But a little while later when I was looking for her, a neighbor came to tell me that she had moved. She tried to explain whereto but I could not really understand. And she also said that the girl was pregnant with me. I wanted to look for her but right after we were transferred to another area. And I've never seen her again.
No remorse
My engagement was terminated by mail but it was also re-established. After two and a half years of Dutch Indies I was going home. At my arrival the little bridge to our house was decorated and my fiancee was waiting for me with my parents. I did not tell about the girl in Indonesia. But at one point my fiancee asked herself: "Have you done it with girls?" I then confessed that I had done it with a girl a few times but I did not tell that she got pregnant.
My fiancee became my wife and we had children. She has always blamed me for my unfaithfulness but I never acknowledged that it was infidelity. After all we had broken up, hadn’t we?
I wander through Indonesia for hours per day
I am now a widower for seven years. It's so quiet in the house being alone, there is a lot of time to dream away. Some days I sit for hours with my thoughts in Indonesia! And then I think of my child out there walking around whom I've never known. I'm not even sure if it’s a he or she and whether it's alive. But the child was conceived in April or May 1946 and should have been born sometime in January, February or March 1947. And it would now be 62 years old.
I never told my children and I leave it like that for the time being. Like my wife they’ve never been very interested in my experiences of the Second World War and Indonesia. But I told my maid. We are getting along very well. You told me that many children of Dutch soldiers from Semarang came to the Netherlands. Maybe my story will ring a bell somewhere and someone will recognize it. Then I could still know my child. I would really like to. That's really all I truely want now.
(Text based on the Oral History interview with Henk Blom by Annegriet Wietsma, 2009)
Do you recognize yourself in this story, did you yourself had to leave a child in Indonesia? Or do you know someone who is looking for his child, his or her father, half brother or half sister? Or have found him or her? Please let us know! |
The documentary
