Most people commemorate the end of the Second World War in the Netherlands on May 4th and 5th May, but in fact the war only came to an end on 15 August. Then the Japanese domination of the Dutch East Indies stopped. Each year Dutch people with roots in the former Dutch East Indies come…
Indonesia has a small Jewish population. In the 19th century, most of the Jews in the Dutch East Indies (now called Indonesia) were Dutch Jews from the Netherlands. The rest of the Jews in Indonesia were mainly immigrants from Iraq and Aden. The memories of wartime Indonesia (formerly known as the Dutch East Indies) were overshadowed by…
The former Netherlands (Dutch) East Indies is present-day Indonesia. The Japanese military occupied the Dutch colony in 1942 during the Pacific War, then placed Dutch nationals in internment facilities and prisoner-of-war camps (90,000 civilians, 40,000 military personnel). Some officials of the Japanese military forcefully transferred Dutch women and women of mixed race from the concentration camps…
It was a warm Saturday afternoon, on October 7th, when more that 150 people came together at the American Legion in Azusa, for the 4th annual TipTalks: an educational seminar and social event sponsored by The Indo Project in cooperation with SoCal Indo social group. It was a good mix of 4-generations, varying from Omas and Opas, Kids and…
The annual commemoration ceremonies ‘herdenkingsceremonie,’ was held on Saturday, August 12th at the National Cemetery of Los Angeles. Around 50 people came together out of respect for the fallen forces and civilians, who lost their life in the former Dutch East Indies during the Japanese occupation and the bersiap period. Unfortunately, the number of attendees…
The Indo Project Editorial Series Indische Kwestie- Part V By Inez Hollander Lake, Ph.D. In this fifth and final part of our editorial series on the Indische Kwestie, I would like to summarize what has happened with the Indische Kwestie in the last few decades. In the 1970s and the 1980s, general apathy from the…
By Roger Green Dokars A dokar is the jiggling, horse-drawn cart found throughout Indonesia. The two-wheeled carts are usually brightly colored with decorative motifs and bells. The small horses or ponies often have long tassels attached to their bridles. A typical dokar has bench seating on either side, which can comfortably fit three or four…
A Special Indo Project Editorial Series. by Inez Hollander, Ph.D. On Tuesday, February 28th, party leader Alexander Pechtold of the political party D’66, was a guest in a talkshow and referred to the migrants who came from Indonesia to the Netherlands in the 1950s and 1960s as “Indonesians”. Needless to say, he should have used the term “Indische…
A Special Indo Project Editorial Series Part I by Inez Hollander, Ph.D. On the Indische Kwestie, Back Pay and Human Rights Harry Francken, who became the main character of my book Silenced Voices (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), returned to the Netherlands in 1946 with his widowed mother. They had lost everything except for the…
special editorial by Inez Hollander, PhD The Indo Project was pleased to see that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit and honor the victims of Pearl Harbor, which was a breakthrough and a motion for continued world peace, which we applaud and honor. It was good to hear that…