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Deze reactie kwam bij ons binnen naar aanleiding van een artikel over ons boek Liefde in tijden van Oorlog in de glossy Pinda, een eenmalige uitgave van Indische Nederlanders in Nederland, dat uitkwam in september 2019.

Het bij ons ingezonden bericht luidt:

Ben het niet eens met ‘liefdeskind’!!
Vaak zijn die kinderen gemaakt door soldaten die hun geilheid kwijt moesten bij de Indonesische vrouwen. En niet ‘uit liefde’ voor die vrouwen!!
Zo ook mijn vader, die ‘geilde’ op een Indonesisch meisje van 16 jaar.
Dat ‘liefdeskind’ ??? ben ik dus.
Heb mijn biologische vader gevonden toen ik 33 jaar oud was.
Toch nog wel 26 jaar intensief contact gehad.
Hij ook toe dat het schering en inslag was en er wel honderden Hollandse kindjes gemaakt zijn toentertijd!!
Dus laten we het niet over ‘liefdeskinderen’ hebben.

December 2019 Marion calls the editors of Oorlogsliefdekind. On this website she has read the story of Conny Latoel, who is looking for her father, the military Harry or Arie Willems or Willemse. Conny Latoel's post immediately reminded her of her father-in-law. It wouldn't be true, would it? Could her father-in-law be Conny's father?

Jaarlijks vindt in oktober de Maand van de Geschiedenis plaats. In 2014 was het thema: Vriend en Vijand. Zaterdagavond 18 oktober 2014 hielden Annegriet Wietsma en Stef Scagliola een lezing tijdens de inmiddels beroemde Nacht van de Geschiedenis in het Rijksmuseum, met als motto: Als de vijand je vader wordt. Het werd een goedbezochte bijeenkomst in de Picknickzaal, met een mooi en gevarieerd programma van drie lezingen. Er waren ook veel jongeren en studenten in de zaal, voor wie het thema nog helemaal nieuw was. Het is al met al een fijne avond geworden.

To all who have contributed to or are interested in the outcome of

the quest of Tetty Sahusilawane to her father:

please read this article.

Good news. The V-fund (National Fund for Peace, Freedom and Veterans Care) has given us a support grant to cover some of the costs of the hosting of this website. We also receive donations from readers and devotees regularly. We are very happy with this support. The next step is to find financial injections to translate the website into Indonesian in order to make the jump to Indonesia, so that the warlovechildren living in Indonesia can read and respond to this site and start their searches for family.
Your donations are still needed and welcome. This can be done via the DONATE button in the right column on this website.

Dear Father, if you are still alive, please read the following notice:

Your blood flows through my veins. Maybe we are lookalikes, maybe not
You abandoned me, cold and in poverty. Now, years later, we surely are different in our attitude:
I will never leave my descendants like you did.
Probably you don’t feel remorse. That’s the reason why I can not carry your name

Warlovechild José has found her father. It indeed appeared to be the Dutch veteran who was detected in 2009, but denied any possibility of being the father. A DNA test in November 2012 finally gave certainty. Two weeks later José and her husband were permitted to visit her father. His wife and daughter were also there. In the photo albums of her fathers military period in the Dutch Indies José recognized her mother on several pictures. José: “I am so relieved! My mother has spoken the truth. That is very important to me. Perhaps this was the one and only meeting with my father, I don’t know. It is now up to them to get in touch with me another time. But my quest is completed. This gives a tremendous peace of mind.”

You can read a report of José's quest on this website: ‘Another happy end of a search?’.

You can also read Jose’s complete story on this website: Category ‘Warlovechildren in the Netherlands’. Title: ‘The only thing I know for sure is that I’m a child of a Dutch soldier’.

The History Online Audience Award is awarded annually to the best historical site of the past year.

OUR WEBSITE ended IN THE TOP-10 OF AUDIENCE FAVORITES

Tuesday 12 February the final winner will be announced. We thank you all for your support.

Dear readers and users,

We, the three founders of the project ‘Warlovechild’, will have to finance the maintenance of this website Warlovechild.org.nl out of our own pockets from January 2013 onwards.

If everyone who cares about the project helps us to pay the necessary expenses, we can keep this website online.

How can you help us financially?

Saturday 7 April 2012 the documentary Tuan Papa will be screened in the CineMasia Filmfestival in Amsterdam.

Location: De Balie, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen, Amsterdam

The screening will start at 1:00 pm.

The film will be screened with English subtitles! Director Annegriet Wietsma is present to answer questions from the audience. Join us!

Dear all,

I would like to share with you that we visited our half-sister Edwina and her children and grandchildren in Indonesia. Last year we heard of each other’s existence for the first time. We combined this very exciting meeting with a holiday in Indonesia. The last four days of our holiday we stayed at home with Edwina, which was fun. All in all, we know each other pretty well now.

During the filming of the documentary Sir Daddy we were looking for Pak Mulyadi. He was supposed to be a child of a Dutch soldier. We knew that years ago he worked as a guard at the tea plantation of Pekalongan in West Java. My sister Tineke Hellwig, an Indonesian linguist, had interviewed him once for a different study. During that interview he had mentioned by chance that his father was a Dutch soldier. They never heard from him. According to the notes of my sister, Pak Mulyadi remembered the name of his father as ‘Permil’. A very strange name.

On our arrival at the plantation we quickly learned that Pak Mulyadi was deceased a few years earlier. But his son and his old mother, who once had been the lover of a Dutch soldier, were happy to receive us. It was an interesting interview with the grandson acting as the interpreter for his grandmother, who only spoke Sundanese and barely Indonesian. At one point we asked for the name of the Dutch grandfather. The name was unfortunately forgotten. But when we mentioned ‘Permil’ the conversation took an unexpected and emotional turn...

On Tuesday, October 11, the Radio Gelderland broadcaster has focused on Warlovechild. Jan van Ewijk, who has been searching for his two half sisters for long, was invited for an interview.
Read more on the website of Radio Gelderland. Once we receive a link to the transmission, we will post it here as soon as possible.

Dear Warlovechild team,

With utmost interest the FIOM Ambulatory Foundation has followed the news on the website of Warlovechild from the start. FIOM can perhaps help people, both warlovechildren as well as Dutch veterans or their Dutch children, in their quests with general assistance and support.

Anna Montan and Patrick Lauwerends wrote the title song for our documentary Sir Daddy (Tuan Papa). The lyrics are sung in Dutch and Indonesian with a catchy melody in an atmospheric arrangement. The two have released a cd called CINTA that contains our song. Read more about this on www.annamontan.com .

Listen to our title song here.

Nana, one of the interviewees in the film Tuan Papa (Sir Daddy), at the Tong Tong Fair in The Hague, holding a DVD of the film in her hands. The two young lovers on the DVD cover are her parents: mother Els and soldier Jack. Nana, living in Indonesia, visited her cousin Dien in the Netherlands this summer 2011. It must be emotional for her to see a bunch of DVDs with that beautiful picture on the sleeve: both her father and her mother have deceased. Fortunately we captured their stories in time and were able to reveal their love story in Tuan Papa and on this website!

Sunday, May 16th was the kick off of the Crossmedia Warlovechild project. Paul van der Gaag and Jos Palm interviewed Annegriet Wietsma and Stef Scagliola, both founders of Warlovechild. Also, military historian Wim Klinkert and jounalist Hilde Jansen contributed to the discussion. In the audience Jan Dennie told briefly about his personal experiences as a warlovechild. Music by Anne Montan and Patrick Lauwerends brought the broadcast into Indonesian spheres.
Afterwards producer Jean Hellwig showed a video impression of his search in Indonesia for warlovechildren together with Annegriet Wietsma.
Watch the video to get an impression of this special radio broadcast.

A year ago, we invented the word "warlovechild” and it has become a concept to stay. The word is new, but the people it's all about have been there since long: children born out of love during wartime.

We received many positive reactions about the word. The warlovechildren themselves who have lived for years in the shadow of an unnamed taboo, appreciate the word underlining that they were born out of love, and not from violence or abuse. Love in times of war, this is what it's all about.

The term was easily translated from the Dutch word 'oorlogsliefdekind'. Hence we can now be found at www.oorlogsliefdekind.nl as well as at www.warlovechild.org. But what would the term be in Indonesian? A first translation could be "anak di masa percintaan perang '. But there is very little poetry in there. And a website address www.anakpercintaaandimasaperang.id seems not the easiest to type.

So who has a good idea? Reply! Who knows, we may make another great contest out of it!

Jean Hellwig

Love in wartime. During the colonial war in Indonesia 1946-1949, Dutch soldiers maintained extensive contacts with Indonesian girls. Often they fathered children as a result of their ‘war romances’. Many of these warlovechildren never met their fathers. They kept looking for them all their lives and would like to get in touch. Is there any family in the Netherlands? Fathers also decide, sometimes after sixty years, to search for their withheld children. And children of Dutch marriages may want to meet their unknown Indonesian half brother or half sister.

Are you looking for a father, warlovechild, half brother or half sister? Or are you curious to read the stories of others?

See the quests in Your Search or start a quest yourself. In Information you can read how to undertake a personal search yourself. For stories about love and war, go to:

Warlovechildren in the Netherlands | Warlovechildren in Indonesia | Daddy Soldiers |
Family & kin | Soldiers Sweethearts in Indonesia |
Soldiers in love | Persevering lovers