by Jane Vogel Mantiri Introduction I met Sonja in October 2011, almost seven decades after Papa was captured by the Japanese, shackled, and forced to work the Death Railway in Siam (Thailand) as a POW (prisoner of war). Papa would endure almost four years of torture before he was released from hell. He never told…
[Photo: The Hague, after 1933. Oma Moesje is second from the right wearing white] The Story of my Indo Oma By Robert Kaya Before I even met my Oma, she already had a long and interesting life. She was born in Kota Raja, Aceh in 1891 as the ninth of ten children. Her father was a…
by Maureen Welscher The Bombing of Pontianak When I was 8 ½ years old, I lived in Pontianak, the capital of Borneo, Indonesia. On the morning of December 19, 1941, I visited a friend who lived opposite the military barracks. We sat in the lounge facing their barracks. We heard planes, which was a rare…
Read TIP’s Indo Profile about war camp survivor and musician Hannie Blaauw. Hannie Blaauw is my very special friend. I met him about twenty years ago when I moved to Arizona. Born and raised on Java, he is eleven years older than I, so he was a teenager during the years of Japanese oppression. He…
This is a letter by Titia Bouma, my great auntie, to Jetze Bouma, her brother born in 1902 in Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia). She wrote this letter at a Red Cross refugee camp in Singapore. Jetze in turn sent this letter from Singapore to Tanjung Priok to Jan Sluijter who in turn sent it to…
By Bianca Dias-Halpert Title: Memories of ‘The East’ Author: Fridus Steijlen, KITLV Press ISBN-10: 906718199 4 ISBN-13: 9789067181990 This book offers a window into the past without having to wade through a lot of facts and data. Between 1997-2001, over 700 interviews were conducted of those who had lived through the end of colonialism…
By Jan Krancher The word “diaspora” has been used throughout the web site of The Indo Project. Most readers are undoubtedly acquainted with this Greek term referring to the dispersion or scattering of Jews outside of Palastine after the Babylonian exile or, to put it another way, the area outside of Palastine settled by the Jews. In that ancient…
By Calvin Sidjaja, Jakarta, Indonesia Title: Social World of Batavia: Europeans and Eurasians in Colonial Indonesia Author: Jean Taylor Gilman ISBN-10: 0299094707 ISBN-13: 978-0299094706 This is probably one of the most complete literature of Dutch-Indonesians you could find. Written in readable language, this book contains valuable information for any Dutch-Indonesian who is curious of their…