ABSTRACT
Willem Frederik (Wim) Wertheim was born in St. Petersburg in 1907 and spent his early years there. Wim and his slightly older brother were the sons of Dutch parents who, as expatriates, were part of the city’s bourgeoisie. With their father a well-to-do businessman, the household included three live-in servants, and nannies were employed to take care of bringing up the boys. After the 1917 revolution, all expats had to leave the country and in 1918 the family returned to the Netherlands. After secondary school Wim read law at the University of Leiden, completing his studies by the end of 1928. The economic crisis that had broken out made it difficult to find a suitable job and his applications for a position in the civil service came to nothing. A public appeal for law graduates prepared to complete an extra course in the law of the East Indies in preparation for an appointment to the colonial judiciary offered Wim a way out of his predicament. The lectures he had to attend allowed him sufficient free time to write a dissertation. Known as a good student, a prominent professor of civil law, Eduard Meijers, proved willing to become his mentor. Wim obtained his doctorate in mid-1930 and, before the year was out, had also taken his examination in the law of the East Indies. Late in 1930 he married Hetty Gijse Weenink, whom he had met at university and who was to remain closely involved in her husband’s career until her death in 1988. Shortly after their marriage the young couple departed for the Orient (Wertheim and Wertheim-Gijse Weenink 1991).
