Stories
As he didn’t want contact, I burned his letters |
Stories -
Warlovechildren in Indonesia
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Written by Annegriet Wietsma
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Nana had just been born when her father, the Dutch soldier Jack who was encamped in Indonesia, had to return to the Netherlands in 1949. "Take care of my sweet little daughter," he wrote his fiancée. But after a while the flow of letters dried up and the contact got broken. Only 45 years later Nana met her father for the first time.
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I often think of him. Even yesterday I did |
Stories -
Soldiers sweethearts in Indonesia
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Written by Annegriet Wietsma
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The story of Ibu Sulatra
I am willing to tell you my story, but I have forgotten a lot. I'm so old. I do not even know my own age. Maybe I'm already 90 years old. But I always kept thinking about him. Even last night, before I knew you were coming, I thought of him. It is as if he visited me in my dreams. Actually I still love him. Honestly.
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The hormones poured out of their ears |
Stories -
Family & kin
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Written by Annegriet Wietsma
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The quest of a son to his half-brother or sister
After my father died, I found between pictures of his military service two portraits of a young Indonesian woman, one of her alone and one with a baby. The sizes of these pictures really differ from other photographs from that time. They fit easily in a man's wallet. Since then, the question keeps me busy: who is this woman, who apparently was so rewarding that my father kept her pictures all these years? And who is the child? Is it his child? Do I have an unknown half-brother or sister?
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Two service buddies and one child |
Stories -
Warlovechildren in the Netherlands
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Written by Annegriet Wietsma
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The story of Veronique Dudek about her father Mart Moors
Our grandfather Martin was a military in the Dutch Indies. He and my grandmother went regularly for reunions of veterans. At one of those meetings my grandmother seems to have shouted to a man: “You have left your child in Indonesia”. It became a real hassle, because a lot of people were sitting around them. Why reacted she so upset, and who was that man she was so angry with? Was it just someone of whom she knew he had left a secret child behind? Or was it perhaps Jan Muller, the biological father of our father?
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Stories -
Soldiers sweethearts in Indonesia
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Written by Annegriet Wietsma
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Obituary Elsje Kauw
Mrs. Elsie Kauw (full name Kauw Liang Eng Nio) is the happy smiling girl on the beautiful picture that has become the 'figurehead' of the project Warlovechild. Her story is described in the category 'Soldier Sweethearts’ on this website. Late November 2010 Ibu Els has deceased.
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It was real Love with a big L |
Stories -
Daddy soldiers
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Written by Louis Velleman
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I was born in 1926. My mother was not a Jew, but my father was. As a child, I was sometimes abused when I walked down the street. And I was not always allowed to play with the other children. Parents used to come up to me and say: ‘Don’t you play with my little boy. You’re a Jew!’ I thought: ‘What is a Jew?’ And I had to make inquiries as to what it exactly meant.
My parents divorced when I was a year old. My mother had to work her guts out for me to bring me up in school and that. We just lived in a little attic. Two little rooms, with no electricity. The only thing we had was water. Terrible. How can a little boy grow up in a an attic?
During WW2 the Nazis classified me as a Jew and I had to wear the star, but I didn’t. I denied it. Anyway, my mother and me survived the war. Then liberation came around and it was not long after that, in 1946, that I had to go to the military service. So I became part of the Dutch Wehrmacht, the Dutch army. And I was send to Indonesia.
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21 Visits in the netherlands in search for my father |
Stories -
Warlovechildren in Indonesia
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Written by Yanuar Sidharta
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The story of Tetty Geertruida Sahusilawane
“I visited the Netherlands twenty-one times. Friends of mine always said: “Why do you always go to the Netherlands? As if there is no other country to spend your holidays.” I did not care what they said. I have a personal mission. I am looking for my biological father.”
When we visit Tetty Sahusilawane on a wet Friday morning in February in Jakarta, she is awaiting us with the proverbial Indonesian hospitality and a table full of snacks and drinks. But according to herself, Tetty has so many Dutch habits that it seems as if she grew up in the Netherlands: she likes things like herring, wet cold, punctuality. Yet her only real bond are her origins: her unknown Dutch military father.
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My brother was so startled that he hung up the phone |
Stories -
Family & kin
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Written by Annegriet Wietsma
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About eight years ago my brother got a telephone call by a woman who was looking for our father. She said she was fathered by him when he was stationed in Indonesia as a soldier. My brother was so shocked, that he did not ask any further and stopped the phone call. But immediately thereafter he went to my father to ask about this matter. My father confirmed nor denied. He just said that he did not want to be remembered to those days in the army. And my brother had to promise that he would never talk about the phonecall while my father was alive. He was not even allowed to inform us, his sister and brother. My father made him promise that he would not try and figure out anything anymore. My brother promised.
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Stories -
Warlovechildren in the Netherlands
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Written by redactie
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Unfortunately for Anne-Marie the family that she finally got in touch with because they responded to her call on this website, are not her relatives (see her story ‘A coffin full of secrets in the wardrobe’ and the continuation of her quest in ‘Another family reunion?’ ). The meeting with Jos and Willemien Kruger was nice, cozy and exciting. And there are certainly similarities in their physiognomy. But apart from that, there were few clues. A DNA test eventually had to give a definite answer, and the test proved negative. There is no match. So ‘back to the start’, as Anne-Marie feels it. Despite this disappointment, she is happy that she met the family. It was a special experience that she did not want to have missed. She is in peace with the results and enjoys life. And: there is always another chance to a new post, as she says. |
He has always stayed her great love |
Stories -
Soldiers sweethearts in Indonesia
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Written by Annegriet Wietsma
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When Elsje Kauw sees the young soldier Jack for the first time she has no idea how he will change her life. She falls in love and gets engaged. But a marriage is thwarted from all sides. Even when their daughter Nana is born. And then Jack must go back to the Netherlands. Els is left with the promise that they ‘will marry by proxy’.
In October 1929 Elsje Kauw is born as Kauw Liang Eng Nio from two Chinese parents in Semarang. Her parents already have a son and four daughters, Elsje being the youngest in the family. When Elsje was in high school, the Japanese invade the country. For the children going to school ends there: the school is closed by the Japanese and the family flees to relatives in Boyolali. But the parents die early from diseases during the Japanese Era: first their father and a few months later their mother. Elsje is 14 years old.
When Semarang is safe again in 1946, the three sisters with Els settle in the district Lemah Gempal. The eldest sister starts a warung (foodshop) at the house where the girls live. Els gets a job close by as a pharmacy prescription receiver. The warung is located in a busy street behind the house. Opposite the warung is a school that is in use as barracks for the Dutch army.
The girls are not inherently hostile to the presence of the Dutch. Before the arrival of the Japanese their parents had contact with Dutch people regularly so it's not uncommon for the girls. The Dutch soldiers often walk past the shop and buy some of their delicacies. That is how Els meets the young soldier Jack van den Brom. Jack is charmed by the beautiful smiling Els and he soon starts seducing her. Initially Els is not very keen on his advances. As a fifteen year old she finds herself a little too young. But, in her own words, "the Dutch are good charmers”. Ultimately Jack’s charms made her desperately fall in love with him. Her older sister also started to date a Dutch soldier.
The girls think the Dutch are attractive and fun. The love couple goes out, sees movies, makes day trips.
Els’s photo album is completely full with snapshots of the numerous trips she and Jack make. And eventually they get engaged on January 1, 1948. Relatives and friends of Els as well as several mates of Jack join the engagement party. Els even becomes Catholic, like Jack.
To Els’s disappointment the Dutch military authorities refuse permission to get married. Rather, they are advised to forget each other. But Jack and Els would not hear of it. They rent a house together and decorate it. Jack officially lives in the barracks but he visits Els as often as he can.
On February 13, 1949, their daughter Nana was born. Jack is then stationed in Yogyakarta so he can not be present during delivery. But he has arranged everything and the delivery takes place at the military hospital in Bojong. When Jack is back in Semarang, he visits Els and his newborn daughter once more and has to tell her that he must leave Indonesia. His contract has expired and can not be extended. He would like to stay in Indonesia but the military authorities have already arranged his passage. He promises Els to marry with proxy once he finds work in the Netherlands. And so Jack goes, leaving his girlfriend and child in limbo.
Not much later Els receives the birth certificate and other papers through the Chaplain, the army clergyman, that should serve their marital arrangement. Els takes this as a bad omen: are these not needed in the Netherlands? And when Nana is one and a half years old, a letter arrives from Jack telling that he will marry a girl in the Netherlands. She will now have to take care of Nana herself. She loses all contact with the Netherlands.
When Nana is four years old, Els brings her to the orphanage of the Franciscan Sisters. She has to work all day to earn a living and taking care of a child is too much. But she believes that Nana will get a good education there, better than if she continues to live in the compound. Her sister also has a child of a Dutch soldier who vanished. Dientje, as she is called, is also brought to the orphanage, so at least the girls can support each other. Nana is regularly at home during weekends but inevitably goes back to the orphanage. Els meets an Indonesian man and from this relationship another daughter is born. Nana remains in the orphanage until high school and then comes back home. Life is not easy on them. When Els is 35 years old her eyesight becomes blurry and not long after she turns almost blind.
Many years later, in 1979, Els is visiting her youngest daughter who now lives in the Netherlands. In the Dutch phone book they look for the name and address of Jack and they can easily find him. Els thinks he should know how Nana is doing and Nana is still entitled to be recognized by them. When Elsje calls him, Jack’s wife anwers the phone. She appears to know nothing. A child in Indonesia? She reacts very frightened and reluctant. There is brief contact between Els and Jack but it leads to nothing. The problems in Jack’s family make him want to keep contact to a minimum. Nana's initial joy that her father is found is replaced by sadness and anger. She tears up all letters that her mother and father have ever exchanged with each other. She wants to forget her father completely, the disappointment is too big.
Around 1990 Els and Nana make another effort to get in touch with Jack through an acquaintance. They have an announcement for Jack published in the Dutch weekly Story. Family members read the announcement and inform Jack. He indeed steps forward. Els travels to the Netherlands with Nana. And so daughter Nana meets her father Jack for the first time in her life. She is 45 years old.
Jos, a son of Jack’s, is very concerned about the fate of Nana and Els. Under pressure of his wife and his son Jos, Jack recognizes Nana as his daughter. Since then there has been contact back and forth, and Jack also has contact with Nana's cousin Dien, also a warlovechild who lives in the Netherlands. But Jack's wife never completely recovers from the blow.
(Based on the Oral History interview with Els, Nana and Jack, held 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!
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Sir Daddy for sale!
The documentary Sir Daddy (Tuan Papa) about warlovechildren, their fathers and their mothers is available on DVD. Order it here for only € 14.95!
Stories
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