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Nothing as human as a soldier in foreign territory. Send him to a distant place where he has to deal with tension and fear during military actions without friends, family or distraction to solace him, and he will look for relaxation and comfort in the form of love with nearby girls. Many military no doubt start relationships or sexual contact with locals. This website is about Dutch soldiers who were fighting a colonial war in Indonesia in the years 1946-1949, and had romantic affairs with Indonesian women.

The project Warlovechildren is about love in wartime. In the period 1946-1949 many Dutch soldiers maintained sexual contacts with Indonesian girls. It was not uncommon that these relationships ended up with  a child. It is estimated that the Dutch army fathered several thousands of children during the colonial war in Indonesia. Most of this Indonesian offspring has never had contact with their Dutch fathers ever after, though many of them kept searching for them all their lives. The unknown lifestories of these warlovechildren, their Indonesian mothers and their Dutch fathers are brought together on this website.

Several agencies and organizations can help to facilitate your search.
The Warlovechild team selected the following options for you:

1. Ministry of Defence
2. Searching the Internet
3. Tips for finding family histories at the National Archives
4. Searching the site of the Veterans Institute
5. Searching at the Dutch Institute for Military History
6. Searching with the help of the Fiom

Sunday September 19, 2010 was the day: the first Meeting Day for warlovechildren, (their) Dutch relatives, veterans and anyone concerned with the subject.

The Meeting Day officially started at 14.00 hours, but half past one the first people already trickled inside the cozy hall in Kumpulan Bronbeek. Until the program officially started, everyone could feast on coffee and traditional Indonesian cake. There were many people whom we already knew, for example, interviewees who have told parts of their stories in our film Sir Daddy: warlovechild Dien Faessen was present with her daughters, Jose Kerry and her husband, Jan Dennie, and veteran Henk Blom, a father who hopes that he can once close his unknown child in his arms.  We can consider them as true ambassadors for Warlovechild. Other fixed contacts we could also greet: Jan van Ewijk, who posted one of the first messages in 2009 on the freshly started website warlovechild.org, and whose two (still unknown) half sisters are figured on the postcard of Warlovechild, and Roy Meyer, who as a result of his story has been interviewed on the Frisian radio interviewed about his search for his father.

Here you will find a list with links and publications about the subject Warlovechildren, military history, love in wartime, the fathering of children by servicemen in the Dutch Indies and Indonesia 1945-1950 etc.

For more elaborate information, see the Dutch version of this website

Boekbespreking ‘Kinderen op kousenvoeten’

Jan van Stuyvenberg is een paar keer aanwezig geweest bij bijeenkomsten van Oorlogsliefdekind. Hij is zelf kind van een Indische moeder en een Koreaanse vader, die in dienst van het Japanse leger tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog in Indonesie was gelegerd. Over zijn eigen ervaringen en die van andere ‘oorlogskinderen’ van Japanners en Koreanen bij het opsporen van hun vaders, heeft hij een boek geschreven dat in oktober 2010 op de markt is verschenen. Het boek bestaat uit twee delen. Het eerste deel bevat persoonlijke ervaringen tijdens zijn eigen zoektocht, en adviezen aan mensen die overwegen hun biologische vader of familie te zoeken. Het tweede deel is een weerslag van gesprekken met zes lotgenoten, in dit geval nakomelingen van Japanse vaders.

Ook al is de zoektocht van Jan van Stuyvenberg naar zijn vader niet geheel vergelijkbaar met de moeilijkheden die Indische oorlogsliefdekinderen van Nederlandse vaders zullen tegenkomen, toch is dit boek ook voor hen heel leesbaar en informatief. Er zullen veel momenten van herkenning zijn voor de Indische oorlogsliefdekinderen. Jan gaat uitgebreid in op zijn vele speurtochten, die leiden naar de meest uiteenlopende instanties, zoals het Nationaal Archief, het NIOD, het Ned. Instituut Militaire Historie, en bij zijn familie. Hij beschrijft eveneens de hulp die hij ontving van instanties als St. Pelita, Cogis, en St. Sakura.

Titel: Kinderen op kousenvoeten

Auteurs: Jan van Stuyvenberg en Hans Liesker

ISBN: 978-90-484-1597-7

Prijs: Eu 10,- excl. porto (ong. Eu 2,50 voor 1 boek)

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