A dive into the past of the Dutch East Indies, that is what the book Child in the Indies is about. And especially about the children who grew up in the gap between colonialism and the independence of Indonesia in the fifties. The Assen writer Michelle van den Berg has recorded eight stories for this. “My grandmother never told me about it, except when I asked about it. When my grandfather died, I realized: if I don’t ask now, then the stories are gone. And I can never find out,” she says.
Van den Berg took on the project together with her mother-in-law and painter Herma van Bolhuis. “Actually, the idea came about together,” says Van den Berg in the Radio Drenthe program Cassata. “It’s a nice combination to bundle those stories, together with the people we spoke to.” It is the first time that Van Bolhuis has contributed to a book.
Grandma Maud Wurster-Winter was born in 1939 on Sumatra. During World War II, when Japan occupied the country, she lived in Java. Grandma Maud’s father worked at the land register and had to travel a lot. “He was put to work in a Japanese camp during the war.” Maud therefore had to help her mother, for example by walking for miles to fetch water. After the war she ends up in the Netherlands. Finally, in 1957, all Dutch people had to leave the Dutch East Indies and the family came together again.