Warlovechildren in Indonesia

The story of John Sopaheluwakan and his sister Elly Hahijary

When I was  6, 7 years old, I lived with my mother and my two brothers near a military camp. Adrie Vermeulen, one of the soldiers stationed there, came around a lot on our door for a couple of weeks. And suddenly, after five weeks, he did not appear anymore. We asked his friend: "Where is Adrie?" “He’s gone”, he said, “he's back to the Netherlands.” Later we learned that my mother had become pregnant of my sister Elly. Father Adrie has never given a sign of life ever after.

Edwina was half a year old, when her mother left Bandung (Java) in 1950 to go to the Netherlands in search of the missing father, the Dutch military Eddie de Haan. Edwina will not see her mother back until 53 years later: mother Wanda stayed in the Netherlands and the young Edwina remained in Indonesia, where she grew up in foster care. It is Edwina's daughter Dinah who managed to complete the quest for the unknown father Eddie.

"Indonesian women with Dutch husbands were killed. My mother and many other mothers, have long kept this secret. Only much later, she dared to tell that she had a Dutch husband. "

The story of Elly Hoektini in Kudus, Java

The return trips to Indonesia and the reunion with the country in the seventies was a feast of recognition for many Dutch veterans who had been garrisoned in the Dutch Indies 30 years before. But for the men of 3-7 RI, who quietly enjoyed their holiday in the lounge of their hotel in Semarang, it was a confrontation with a call for recognition.

Luwi Velleman was born in 1949 and lives in Semarang, in the Jangli district. His father, Louis Velleman, had the small Luwi in his arms and cherished him. Then in 1949 all Dutch soldiers had to return to the Netherlands. Father Louis left his girlfriend and child in Indonesia with the intention to return as quickly as possible, with a job and a future. But it never came to be. Luwi has never seen his father. He lived in the assumption that his father had abandoned him deliberately. Until he received a letter from Australia in 1990...

Jecky was born and raised in Bali. His daddy soldier left the island even before the birth of his child to Java and then to the Netherlands. Only 34 years later, after a long search, Jecky traced his father Jack. His father did not want to travel to Indonesia to meet because of his advanced age. And Jecky, who had never been outside Bali, did not dare to travel to the Netherlands. Son and father would never meet. Yet father Jack eventually returned in Jecky's life.