Dr Nonja Peters is an historian, anthropologist, museum curator and social researcher whose expertise is transnational migration (forced and voluntary) and resettlement in Australia. She is the author of several books, museum exhibitions, journal articles, TV documentaries, and government reports. Her achievements and dedication towards raising awareness of the post-war Read more
Hans van de Drift – Hans The story of one of Australia’s largest sausage manufacturers ‘ Hans’ begins in the Netherlands. Hans van der Drift tried to escape being in the army (draft was still a thing back then) AND having to work for his dad on the weekends in Read more
The Langbroek family emigrated from the Netherlands to Australia in mid-1961, shorty after the birth of John-Paul. Their mother, Anne, is part Jamaican and American, and their father, Jan Langbroek, is Dutch. Both worked as missionaries in Papua New Guinea. The family travelled around rural Queensland where Langbroek Sr worked Read more
The following is an interview with Glen published in October 2018 in the Daily Telegraph. A link to the Article is provided underneath, Liverpool Historical Society president Glen op den Brouw reflects on what he loves about Liverpool. 1. When did you move to this suburb and why? After migrating Read more
Dutch-born Bakker has floristry in his blood. His father was a fourth-generation tulip farmer and Joost and his three brothers grew up surrounded by flowers on their property.
Yvonne Louis (born 1946) migrated to Australia as a child with her parents from the Netherlands. When raging bushfires threatened her family home in the Lane Cove National Park in Sydney’s northern suburbs Yvonne managed to save the treasured Dutch heirlooms that had been handed down to her by her Read more
I was born in Gouda, the Netherlands during World War II. I migrated to Australia at the age of 12, on the migrant ship Johan van Oldenbarnevelt in 1956. My parents thought they would find a house and work easily in Perth but, after a brief talk with the family Read more
In 2001 they visited her brother-in-law in New Zealand and both she and her husband felt there should be more to life than running the rat race they were in. So, the seed of migration had been planted.
Australia seemed the obvious choice. So, the visa process got started, but that took a long time. So, they decided to go on a tourist visa for 6 months and see what would happen. Well, that was a golden move, because while they were travelling around Australia their visa was approved!
As a KNIL Officer, he was part of the Australian troops (Sparrow Force) in Timor. He was later placed as a bombardier at the 18 NEI Squadron RAAF in MacDonald airfield near Darwin. After that he became a NEI intelligent officer on Dutch New Guinea and Borneo and was killed during the Indonesian uprising, Bersiap.
When the war reached Java, he fled on the merchant ship the KPM SS Boissevain to Freemantle. He was despatched to the RAAF training camp near Lake Macquarie and from here he was send to the Jackson, Mississippi to be trained on the B25 bombers. He was assigned to the No. 18 Squadron NEI / RAAF operating from the Batchelor Airfield, Northern Territory. He flew bombing missions against Japanese military strongholds and shipping. He was highly decorated.