Two families two wars in Indonesia
COPYRIGHT MARLIES TER BORG marliesterborg@gmail.com I was born in Indonesia on 24th December 1948, a 'Christmas Angel'. Much later I discovered that exactly on that day the Security Council of the UN, returning from the Christmas reces, condemned the Dutch Goverment for the occupation, by general Spoor, of Yogyakarta and the exile of the Indonesian leader Soekarno.
This coincidence has planted in me an anxious fascination with War, and a longing for Peace. Some weeks after my birth my grandmother Amelia Schlamilch died in Yogyakarta. My parents ventured that her soul had entered me. I dedicate this history of my familiy through the Jappanese occupation and the Indonesian Revolution and the Dutch Indonesian war to Amelia Schlamilch
Special attention is given to Berg en Dal, the beautiful villa built by Neervoort next to social housing in Ciumbuleuit Bandoeng. It was the height of the lives of Bart nd Melie who had spent their youth together in a Dutch orphanage. Tragically it was badly damaged during the Indonesian Revolution/ Bersiap. This his uprising was due to the refusal of the Dutch Government to negotiate with the Indonesian leader Soekarno, in order to devise a cooperative law and order policy. Thus they undermined the promise made by the queen in 1942 and broadcast again in 1945. A backlash of violence was the result.