The story of the Van der Woude family reflects the experience of many Dutch migrants who helped shape Tasmania’s post-war development. Through small business enterprise, church involvement and later civic leadership, successive generations of the family became part of the social and economic fabric of the state. War-time beginnings and Read more
Samanuddin was born in 1906 in Dacca (now Dhaka, Bangladesh), then part of British India. He later served as a seaman in the Netherlands Merchant Navy. Like many Asian sailors recruited by Dutch shipping companies during the interwar and wartime years, he became part of the multinational crews that operated Read more
The Dutch Australian Cultural Centre (DACC) and Badan Pelestarian Pusaka Indonesia (BPPI) – the Indonesian Heritage Trust – have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing a framework for cooperation focused on the shared heritage of Indonesia and the Netherlands in Australia. The agreement recognises that the histories of Indonesia Read more
Roelofina Wisse-Borger, known within her family as Fiena, was one of the many ordinary Dutch citizens who demonstrated extraordinary courage during the Second World War. For her actions in hiding Jewish families during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, she was posthumously honoured with the title Righteous Among the Nations, Read more
Early life in Noordwijk aan Zee Agatha Neletta Koers was born in 1916, during the First World War. Although the Netherlands remained neutral, her family story recalls shortages and flooding that affected daily life. She grew up in Noordwijk aan Zee, where her father was a minister in the Gereformeerde Read more
Early life in the Netherlands Cornelis Antonie de Jong was born in 1916 in Asperen, a small rural town along the river Linge. He grew up in a family marked by poverty, limited formal education, and the social pressures of interwar Dutch society. Work was often seasonal or insecure, schooling Read more
A Dutch-Australian gateway to post-war settlement Between 1948 and 1952, the former army camp at Kelso near Bathurst operated as one of Australia’s largest migrant reception and training centres. Originally constructed during the Second World War for military purposes, the site was repurposed to receive European migrants arriving under Australia’s Read more
The American shipwreck at Tulamben in Bali, well known today among divers, is the remains of the USAT Liberty. I was alerted to this wreck by my grandson, Neriya, who dived the site in February 2026. While the vessel itself was American, its final voyage in January 1942 unfolded within Read more
Zwier Albertus ‘Alby’ Mangels was born in the Netherlands on 16 November 1948. In 1955, he migrated to Australia with his parents and siblings as part of the large post-war wave of Dutch migration. The family settled in Mount Burr in South Australia, where Mangels spent his formative years. Growing Read more
This article is informed in part by a contemporaneous Australian account published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 18 February 1946, reproduced below. That article examined claims raised during United States Senate hearings into the Pearl Harbor attack and addressed Australia’s handling of a warning originating from the Netherlands East Read more