The history of the Dutch East Indies often seems distant in the Netherlands: something found in archives, schoolbooks, and annual commemorations. But in Amsterdam Nieuw-West, that past still lives on, according to writer Wendela Gronthoud (former member of ENIEC). On Friday evening, she presented her book on the history of elderly people from the Dutch East Indies in Amsterdam Nieuw-West.
The smell of spekkoek and pastries fills the Aker community center in Osdorp. Chairs are pushed closer and closer together. Then another row. And a few more. What at first seemed like a spacious room quickly turns into a crowded, lively space. People call out each other’s names, laugh out loud, talk over each other. As if no one is in a hurry to be quiet.
Dozens of elderly people, most of whom were born in the former Dutch East Indies, have gathered this afternoon for the presentation of Landverhuizers rond de Sloterplas (Migrants around the Sloterplas), a new book by social scientist Wendela Gronthoud. It compiles thirty life stories of Dutch Indonesians who settled in Slotermeer, Geuzenveld, Slotervaart, and Osdorp after the war. Many of the people written about are in the room today.
The Dutch East Indies between KNSM Island and Sloterplas
“Today, it seems as if the Dutch East Indies lie somewhere between KNSM Island and Sloterplas,” Gronthoud tells the audience. She refers to writer Tjalie Robinson, who once said that the Dutch East Indies lay between The Hague and the dunes. “Of course, the Dutch East Indies no longer exist.
“But this room is full of people who remember it very well.”
After World War II, an estimated 300,000 Dutch Indonesians came to the Netherlands. Many of them ended up in the Western Garden Cities, built according to the ideal of light, air, and space. Slotermeer became so Indonesian that tram line 13 was soon nicknamed the “trassi express,” after the fermented shrimp paste used in Indonesian cuisine.
Although The Hague is known as the Dutch East Indies city, at the beginning of this century, more people who were born in the Dutch East Indies lived in Amsterdam. Yet that history is often missing from Amsterdam’s self-image, according to Gronthoud. ‘No one knew we were there’.
More than war
Gronthoud’s family lived in the Dutch East Indies for decades; she herself was born in the Netherlands. For a life book project in Nieuw-West, she recorded the memories of older local residents. This marked the beginning of a broader search for the Indonesian history of this district.
According to Gronthoud, that past is too often reduced to war, the Bersiap, the violent period immediately after the Japanese surrender, and nostalgia for tempoe doeloe, the romanticized memory of life before the war. Important elements, but not the whole story, she believes.
Her book therefore also tells the story of children walking barefoot on hot asphalt, eating ice cream, and getting their first kiss. But it also tells the story of Japanese soldiers, men’s camps, and forced assimilation.
Upon returning to Indonesia, one of the interviewees grabs the bars of the fence of his old house and shouts, “This is my house.”
“Wendela had a special key”
Corry Smit-Otto, 90, sits in the front row. She follows the presentation with her hands in her lap, the book closed on her lap. Afterwards, she says, “Wendela had a special key.” She smiles briefly. “She unlocked my memories.”
It took time to get the stories out, Gronthoud told the audience a little earlier. Many interviewees had kept silent about them for years. Smit-Otto also found it difficult to share her memories.
Alderman Alexander Scholtes accepts it on his afternoon off. “I myself have a mother from the Dutch East Indies and know how important it is to tell these stories,” he says.
She recounts how she hid her sister under the bed from Japanese soldiers, how she had to knit socks to survive, how corpses were thrown out of trucks. “As a child, you don’t think about that,” she says. “Now it would shock me.”
She arrived in the Netherlands via Thailand and Singapore without any warm clothes. “I knew what cold was,” she says, “but not how it felt.” Those around her nod in agreement. “We all recognize that,” says one woman.
Cultural heritage
It’s cold outside. People pull their scarves up higher, rub their hands together to keep warm. Corry Smit-Otto stands there, firmly planted on both feet. She built her life in Amsterdam Nieuw-West: she got married, had children, studied, learned to live.
“That’s also the story of people who moved from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands,” says Gronthoud. “It’s about how you build a life in a country you only know from books.”
She believes it is essential to record these stories. “It’s cultural heritage. For Dutch people too. You have to write it down.”
By Marisa Gubbels
