The story of Sinterklaas (Sint Nicolaas) is of course well known, there is plenty of information on the internet about this typical Dutch tradition. Although it has changed over the years due to changes in society e.g. the arrival of radio, television, internet as well as an increasingly more multicultural Dutch population, it is still very uniquely Dutch and a mix of the old and the new.
In the DACC archives is a photograph of Sinterklaas celebration at the home of Johanna Stas with Cor Merckx as Sinterklaas. (Cor Mercks a well-known figure in the Dutch community as president of the NSW Klaverjas Federation).
Sinterklaas at the home of the Budde family in Roseville, Sydney, in 1984. Sinterklaas is Peter van Bruinessen en Pieterman is Astrid van Bruinessen.
This article, published in Dutch connections: 400 years of Australian–Dutch maritime links 1606–2006 and presented by Nonja Peters at the Australian National Maritime Museum, examines the gap between expectation and reality in post-war Dutch migration Read more
One of the most striking aspects of Dutch–Western Australian history is the disconnect between early European discovery and later patterns of settlement. As outlined by Neil Foley in Dutch connections with Western Australia 1829–1920, the Read more
Between the Netherlands and Australia The end of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia led to the large-scale displacement of people connected to the former Netherlands East Indies (NEI). Between 1945 and the early 1960s, around Read more