  |
  |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stories
|
CommunityWat wij voor elkaar kunnen betekenen. Sir Daddy for sale!
Search the websiteStoriesRecent reactions
Social Media
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stories
|
CommunityWat wij voor elkaar kunnen betekenen. Sir Daddy for sale!
Search the websiteStoriesRecent reactions
Social Media
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This work has benefited from support by the Children Born of War Project
|
I was born in 1950 in Central Java, Semarang. My mother worked as a kitchen help in the military barrack. She was given board and lodging there, so I guess she was there day and night. And my father was a serviceman and worked as a cook. In that kitchen, they came into contact with each other. Did they spend long evenings together, or was their contact just like an afternoon snack? Was it a longer relationship? I do not know. However, I do know that I was the result.
My mother is of Indonesian descent, a wealthy family. I believe my grandfather was a doctor or something, and my mother completed high school in the Dutch East Indies. At young age she married a man of Persian-Armenian descent. They led a comfortable life in Surabaya, a big house, almost a palace, and a livery stable full of horses, so I'm told. After the invasion of the Japanese her husband was murdered by the Japanese and Pelopor. My mother was left with three young children, they all four ended up in a Japanese camp. My mother had to witness many atrocities. Her cousin was ripped open by the Pelopor in her presence. After the war, she vowed to herself that she would never marry any black man. She only wanted to deal with white men!
Jan’s father was encamped as a Dutch soldier in the area of Semarang. Jan’s mother worked in the kitchen barracks and as a washing woman. She fell immediately for the tall Dutchman; he was attractive and charming. After a year Jan’s mother got pregnant, but because of a sense of shame for her environment, she left her village to go to Jakarta. There she completed her pregnancy, and gave birth to Jan. 
Dien grew up in Semarang with her mother until her 4th and spent the rest of her childhood in the orphanage of the Franciscan Sisters. She worked as a nurse at the Elizabeth hospital, until she left for the Netherlands on her thirtieth. There the search for her Dutch daddy soldier started. Instead of one, she found two fathers, and also an unknown half-brother who did not know of her existence either.
The documentary
