15 August 1945 Commemoration and Liberation Ball 2024

De Geest Overwint

The Indo Project will be hosting this year’s annual Commemoration and Liberation Ball on Saturday, August 10, 2024, at the Elks Lodge in Buena Park, California. This important event is about our shared heritage and a tribute to generations that came before us. The event’s theme is “De Geest Overwint” which in Dutch translates to “The Spirit Overcomes.”

Previously, the Nationale Herdenking 15 Augustus 1945 Comité, made up of a dedicated group of local volunteers, traditionally commemorated this day with both a special ceremony at the Los Angeles National Cemetery at our Indo Stone monument and followed by a lovely ball on the same day in order to be together, share stories, and remember our shared history. At the request of the Comité, The Indo Project started hosting this event last year (2023). TIP is honored to be spending this time with all of you, our community, and all the people with roots in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) who remember its liberation from Japanese occupation in 1945.

The event will include a flag ceremony and memorial dedicated to the many lives lost in WWII during the occupation of the former Dutch East Indies. For many in our community, it is also an opportunity to honor those who survived the horrors of that war and who ultimately made their way to the shores of the United States of America to start over and to build our community anew.

Food, Music and Dancing

This year the Ball, which takes place immediately following the Herdenking (commemoration), will feature Live Music! with the band Kool Breezzz, featuring our own multi-talented band leader Indo Wendy De Ridder, will be providing the music for the event. Bring your dance shoes as there will of course be dancing, and more dancing. 

This year’s event will once again feature Indo food, our cultural glue, brought to you by Caterer Nataly. She will also be bringing additional delicacies like kroketten, risoles, lemper and pasteitjes  as well as çendol, an Indonesian iced sweet dessert drink to the event. Bring your Indo appetite! Most importantly, come to share conversations, bridging the gap between generations and forging new connections. The act of sharing a meal is a symbol of unity and a reminder of the shared experiences that bind us all.

Lifetime Achievement Award

This year, The Indo Project will be honoring the phenomenal Henny Neys: Indo activist, supporter and leader and founder of Alan Neys Memorial Fund. Ms. Henny Neys has been a dedicated advocate for the unity of the Indo community in the United States since she arrived in Lansing, Michigan, with her husband, Alan Neys, their two-year-old daughter, and their six-week-old baby boy.

In addition to serving as president of the Netherlands Benevolent Society, Henny founded the Netherlands American Cultural Heritage Organization (NACHO) to concentrate on the needs of Dutch immigrants of Indonesian descent. Over the years, Henny and Alan also found time to manage the Frank Campini Foundation, a charity supporting civic and cultural activities. In 2000, at sixty years old, Alan died, and Henny became the sole director of the foundation.

To honor her husband, Henny established the Alan Neys Memorial Fund, designed to aid elderly citizens of Dutch descent living in Indonesia who are often neglected by their own government or forgotten by relatives. Alan had grown up in Indonesia, and this cause had been close to his heart. Henny travels annually to Indonesia, visiting people and providing financial support. A remarkable individual, a great humanitarian, Henny has been recognized for her outstanding charitable and philanthropic work.

Beloved by many, she has been referred to as “Mother Henny of the Bay Area and Beyond”; “the Dutch Social Worker of the Bay Area”; or, more simply and affectionately as “Mother Hendrika”.

Los Angeles National Cemetery

All event attendees, as well as those unable to attend the Herdenking and Ball on Saturday, are invited to join TIP at the cemetery the following day. On Sunday, August 11, 2024, at 11 am, we will lay the memorial wreath and flowers at the Dutch East Indies War Memorial at the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Maps and instructions will be available at the event.

Herdenking Ball tickets are on sale now online or by calling Maureen de Schepper, TIP Treasurer. See our flyer for details. Ticket sales will close on July 31, 2024.

You don’t miss out! We look forward to seeing you and your loved ones there!