The Van der Sommen Family’s Migration from Helmond to Mount Gambier Elly Anderson (née van der Sommen) | Written in 2014 In my small collection of Dutch books at our home in South Australia there is a 1950 hard cover publication titled Australië – Land van Vele Mogelijkheden by J.J. Read more
Anton Roodhuyzen recalls his childhood in the Netherlands East Indies, his family’s internment during the Japanese occupation, their post-war evacuation to the Netherlands and his eventual migration to Australia. My full name is Antonie Roodhuyzen. I am of European Dutch descent and was born on 1 December 1936 in the Read more
Published by DAAAG April 8, 2016 Adriaan and Jo on their silver Wedding Anniversary In June 1991, when Adriaan and Johanna Rutte had been married 50 years, a family of no less than seventy members, spanning four generations, celebrated with them. The number was hardly surprising to those who had seen Read more
A Dutch naval engineer from the Netherlands East Indies to wartime Australia When the story of the Royal Netherlands Navy during the Second World War is told, the focus is usually on submarines, destroyers and the men who commanded them in combat. Less visible, but equally essential, were the naval Read more
Wilhelmina De Brey These pieces are in memory of those I failed to help survive. I had hoped to save their lives. Through the betrayal of another person, to the secret police, the Kempeitai, our house was invaded. I had received a visit from a woman three weeks before the raid, and Read more
The story of the Drok family is one of courage, endurance and remarkable resilience in the face of war. During the Japanese occupation of the Netherlands East Indies, Dirk Drok, his wife Kitty, and their young son Arnold experienced the hardships of internment, separation and survival. Yet their lives after Read more
John (Jan) Rikkers John (Jan) Rikkers was born on 5 February 1925 in den Haag, the youngest child of Jan Rikkers and Marie van der Wansem (official papers in later years state his date of birth as 1921, but according to John he had deliberately put his age up so Read more
Memories of my father, Captain Adrianus Cornelis Marinus (Hoffie) Hofman Adrianus Cornelis Marinus Hofman was born in Velsen, a small town in the Province of North Holland, on the 26th of September 1898. His childhood sweetheart, Frouwe Christina Boomgaard was born in Breskens in the Province of Zeeland, on 2 Read more
Jordan Bos is a football/soccer player with connections to both Australia and the Netherlands. Bos was born in Melbourne on 29 October 2002 to parents Jacco and Sandra, who raised him and his younger brother Kasey in the city’s southwestern suburb of Point Cook. Today, Jordan Bos, who plays as Read more
Alois (Wies) Amrein was born in Fort de Kock (now Bukittinggi) in Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) on 27 February 1910. His parents were Felix Amrein, who was originally from Switzerland, and Indonesian woman Maria Lucia Siken; Wies received Swiss nationality at birth. In 1934, Wies married Read more