Epilogue

‘I knew the word “tjintangen” before I was familiar with the concept of “bersiap”’, said the journalist Hans Moll. ¹ As this quote indicates, the extreme violence during the earliest phase of the Indonesian Revolution, as well as its designation as the bersiap period, were unfamiliar topics in the Dutch public domain for many years. More openness gradually emerged, most recently culminating in the fierce discussion that erupted in early January 2022 around guest curator Bonnie Triyana and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam’s plan to scrap the word bersiap from the ‘Revolusi’ exhibition, which focused on the Indonesian struggle for independence. ² This sparked parliamentary questions, the initiation of legal proceedings against Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, and a public debate in which not only traditional advocates of the broad Indo-Dutch community made themselves heard, but also numerous other voices. ³ The discussion did not go unnoticed in Indonesia. ⁴ The recent debate is in stark contrast to the invisibility of bersiap in the public domain in the first three decades after 1950. This changed in the 1980s, when freedom was created in Dutch society to discuss memories of the war, which were no longer confined to the private sphere. Increasing attention was also paid to the possible impact of the war at the psychological level, in the form of trauma. ⁵ The Dutch government also became aware of this problem, and developed support for people who had suffered health damage during the Second World War. This resulted, among other things, in the Benefit Act for Civilian War Victims 1940-1945 (Wet uitkering burger-oorlogsslachtoffers 1940-1945, Wubo) in 1985. ⁶ The founding of the self-help organization Children of the Japanese Occupation and Bersiap 1941-1949 (Kinderen uit de Japanse Bezetting en Bersiap 1941-1949, kjbb) in 1988 was a turning point in this social context. ⁷ The year 1988 was also significant for the public visibility of the Dutch Indo commemorative community, because it saw the founding of the Indies Monument 1941-1945 in The Hague and the National Indies Monument 1945-1962 in Roermond, bringing the war years of the Japanese occupation and the Indonesian Revolution to the attention of a wider audience.