News and Updates Archives - Dutch Australia Cultural Centre

“Lifting the Low Sky:” Dutch Australians – Assimilationists or Accommodationists?

This document by Desmond Cahill analyses the history, community dynamics, and assimilation patterns of Dutch Australians within the broader context of Australian immigration and multiculturalism. Dutch Australian Community’s Historical Context Settlement Patterns and Ethnic Integration Cultural Core Values and Adaptation Strategies Impact of Historical and Personal Factors Primordial Cultural Traits Read more

By DACC, 1 dayApril 16, 2026 ago

Netherlands East Indies - Australia History

Andreas Flach – With mixed feelings, Indisch Dutch Australians still think of Indonesia as home

By Dr. Nonja Peters Between 1945 and 1949, around 300,000 Indies-born and Eurasian Dutch relocated from the Netherlands East Indies to the Netherlands as a result of the Japanese Occupation of Java and Sumatra and the Indonesian Revolution. Not only did the Indos (Eurasian Dutch) have to leave members of Read more

By DACC, 1 weekApril 10, 2026 ago

Military and Political History

Queensland, New Guinea and the Dutch: recognition without resistance in the 1880s

Early Dutch claims set the framework When the Australian colonies began to look northward in the late nineteenth century, the island of New Guinea was not an unclaimed space. The Netherlands had already laid claim to the western half of the island in 1828, incorporating it—at least formally—into the Dutch Read more

By DACC, 1 weekApril 8, 2026 ago

DAAAG

Henriette Thomas (nee Kuneman): Life in Java, internment in war, evacuation to Singapore and Australia

Life in Java in the early 20th century Henriette Adriana Margaretha Thomas (nee Kuneman) was born on 22 January 1930 on the Badek Estate, a coffee and rubber plantation, near Kediri, East Java in the former Netherlands East Indies (NEI). Her father Jan Hendrik Kuneman (7 April 1885 – 9 March Read more

By daaag, 1 weekApril 7, 2026 ago

Aviation and Shipping

KLM’s return to Australia: the Constellation and the first postwar civilian service

The reintroduction of KLM’s air service to Australia in 1951 must be understood against the backdrop of an earlier Dutch aviation network that had already reached the continent before the war—and had then been abruptly dismantled by it. During the 1930s, KNILM (Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij) operated an extensive network Read more

By DACC, 1 weekApril 7, 2026 ago

Art, Music, Film, Theatre

Cor Frederiks: businessman, scholar, author, investor and art collector

Cornelis Frederiks, who prefers to be addressed as Cor, is a down-to-earth, sprightly and quick-witted 86-year-old businessman, scholar, author, investor, art collector and company director with a flourishing accounting practice in Cleveland, a sea-side suburb of Brisbane. Cor insists he is not retired and he still attends his office from Read more

By daaag, 2 weeksApril 6, 2026 ago

Literature

From Digul to Brisbane: Mohamad Bondan and the Indonesian Nationalist Movement in wartime Australia

Indonesian political prisoners and colonial repression The story of Indonesian nationalist Mohamad Bondan reflects a largely overlooked chapter in the shared wartime history of Indonesia, the Netherlands and Australia. His experiences illustrate how the upheavals of the Second World War brought anti-colonial activists into direct contact with Allied wartime structures Read more

By DACC, 2 weeksApril 1, 2026 ago

Literature

The Dutch East India Company and Australia: A reluctant discoverer

The article below by Femme S. Gaastra, published in The Great Circle, offers a nuanced interpretation of the role of the Dutch East India Company in the early European encounters with Australia. Rather than celebrating discovery alone, it examines a more revealing question: why the Dutch, despite being the first Read more

By DACC, 2 weeksApril 1, 2026 ago

Dutch artefacts

Captain Cornelis Keesmaat and the crash of the Dutch bomber N5-156 near Darwin.

During the Second World War, northern Australia became a crucial operational base for Allied air forces defending the continent and supporting offensive operations into the Netherlands East Indies. Among the aircraft deployed in this theatre was a Dutch-operated North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, serial N5-156, whose dramatic loss in October Read more

By DACC, 2 weeksApril 1, 2026 ago

Literature

Understanding Java: Australian historian Merle Ricklefs and the world of the Netherlands East Indies

Merle Calvin Ricklefs Merle Ricklefs (1943–2019) was one of the leading Western historians of Indonesia. Born in the United States, he built his academic career in Australia, where he held senior positions at Australian National University and Monash University. From this Australian base, Ricklefs developed an international reputation as a Read more

By DACC, 2 weeksMarch 31, 2026 ago