Interview with Vicki Mynott ca 2014 I was eight when we arrived in Australia in 1959. Like many immigrants, we docked in Sydney then took a train to South Brisbane, then a bus on to Wacol Migrant Camp. The Dutch There were a lot of Dutch people coming in then Read more
The military service records of Bernhard Jan Ruesink provide another remarkable insight into the highly international character of Dutch wartime military history during and after the Second World War. His career connected the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, Australia and postwar Indonesia through Allied military aviation and Read more
The military service record of Marinus Willem Reith provides a fascinating insight into the international wartime experiences of Dutch servicemen connected to Australia during the Second World War. His file traces a path from the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) through Australia and the United States and back into postwar Indonesia Read more
The military service records of Willy Erkelens provide a fascinating insight into the international wartime and postwar networks that connected the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), Australia, the United States and Indonesia during and after the Second World War. His career reflects the experiences of many Dutch military personnel who escaped Read more
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 to Australia between 1947 and 1970. Drawing on historical records, media accounts, and migrant testimonies, Read more
In a quiet cemetery in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, far from Australia, two young Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) airmen continue to be remembered. Their graves are not tended by family members, but by a Dutch family who never knew them in life. For decades they have marked the Read more
Introduction Sardjono (often also written as Sordjono) was one of a group of Indonesian political detainees whose wartime journey from Dutch colonial imprisonment to Australia placed him at the centre of a significant historical transition. His experience reflects the broader trajectory of many Indonesians who, during the Second World War, Read more
Introduction In September 1944, a significant development took place within the Indonesian community in Australia with the formation of the Serikat Indonesia Baroe (SIBAR), or New Indonesia Association. Established in Melbourne, SIBAR marked an important moment in the evolution of Indonesian political activity in Australia during the Second World War. Read more
Introduction During the Second World War, the internment complex at Cowra became one of Australia’s most significant wartime detention sites. While best known for housing Italian and Japanese prisoners of war, Cowra also played a lesser-known but historically important role in the detention of Indonesians under Dutch authority. As documented Read more
Among the many functions of the Netherlands East Indies Government-in-exile based at Camp Columbia in Brisbane during World War II, one of the most strategically significant—and least remembered—was the work of NIGIS, the Netherlands Indies Government Information Service. Operating in close cooperation with Allied information and propaganda units, NIGIS served as the Dutch government’s Read more