Why this Website?

"The history of my life is the history of my heart" 

Inspired by the beautiful books "Istori Kita" and "De Lange Reis van de Poesaka" by Simone Berger, I recently wrote down my father's story based in the Dutch East Indies. That story starts in 1921 with the immigration of my grandfather and his family to the Dutch East Indies to take up work in education and ends in 1958 with the forced repatriation of my father and his family back to the Netherlands.

As a result my wife Tilly and I came up with the idea to collect more of these family stories. Together with those involved, we eventually wrote ten stories, and we have still many more "in the pipeline".

"The Circle of Stories about the Dutch East Indies"

In addition, there are many other interesting and poignant stories  about the Dutch East Indies to be found on the Internet, the links of which can be found at :

"More Online stories about the Dutch East Indies"   

None of these stories are told because the narrator thinks himself to be so interesting, but mainly because they take place against the background of periods that are very important for history. These backgrounds have changed many lives forever. Unfortunately, it has turned out that later generations know very little about them, as a result of which generation of the pre-war Dutch East Indies is often neither heard nor understood. It is through passing on these stories, allowing them to be understood and recorded that this understanding comes about and that it continues to exist. That is why we have also placed numerous amount of educational videos, collected from the YouTube channel under

"The Backgrounds"

After 1945 more than 300'000 people from the Indonesian archipelago came to the Netherlands. The exodus as a result of the end of the Japanese occupation and the independence of Indonesia lasted until about 1968 and took place in "waves" of departures. Officially this exodus was called "The Repatriation from the Indies", but for most of the emigrants this meant a definitive departure to a country unknown to them.

The Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd (KRL) and the Stoomvaartmaatschappij Nederland (SMN) in particular have played a very important role with their passenger ships from 1945 onwards, whether forced or not,  to leave the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia for the Netherlands. 

That is why we have dedicated a separate chapter to this subject:

"The Repatriation 1945-1968" 

In order for this website to continue to grow, we warmly encourage visitors to send in more material (stories, links, etc.):

info@de-indische-verhalentafel.online

Suggestions, tips and constructive criticism are also welcome, for which we thank you in advance!

Guus Rozendaal, oktober 2020

N.B.:

This website if fully dedicated to the repatriation to the Netherlands for now. However, many emigrated to countries other than the Netherlands directly or via the Netherlands after the Japanese capitulation or its aftermath, in which economic motives, the Dutch climate and government policy played an important role.

For example, in 1952, my Uncle Jaap and his wife left Indonesia for Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, where their children were born.

These stories and more fascinating background information can be found on the English-language website of The Indo Project: