A week ago or so Sandy posted a blog recommending the book “The Persimmon Tree” by Bryce Courtenay. She said it is set in Jakarta before WWII. This reminded me of my mothers family and has inspired me to write a little of what I know about their life.

I previously wrote about them briefly in my ‘Family History ‘blog –

http://au.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-VJnHR688eqjvaVaeAw3Xca8DRqfq?p=123

My Great Grandmother ( Oma Kemp) eventually left my great grandfather who was apparently a very jealous and untrusting man, to the point that he used to check Oma Kemps shoes to see if they had dirt on them in case she had been away from the house.

She met and married another dutch man and had another 3 children and continued to live in Indonesia. They then returned to live in Holland.

By that time my grand mother (Oma Co) had met my grandfather and married and remained in Indonesia, where my Auntie Rita, uncle Fred, Uncle Flip and my mother were born.

As was common there, the family had a cook, amah and gardener to take care of things and help with looking after the children. My mother says they had a mostly happy childhood and spent a lot of time with their Indonesia amah.

My grandfather was in the Dutch merchant Navy and spent long periods away from home.He would always bring something for the children when he came home from being at sea. He brought all sorts of things and not always practical things. One time he came home with a baby elephant!

My mothers family managed to stay in their home during the war when the Japanese occupied Indonesia. Somehow they were lucky and were not forced to go to one of the prisoner of war camps. My mother says she thinks it was because the family had been there so long and that perhaps because of her grandfathers previous marriage and half Indonesian children they were considered less of a threat? However my uncle Fred was sent to a mens camp at the age of 12 for a short time until Oma Co somehow convinced the authorities to let him home.

My mother remembers the war years as being quite hard and stressful and she wonders at times how Oma Co coped without a husband there and having to care for 4 children. There were times when Japanese solders would barge in looking for people or demanding food or property. Oma Co had to sell many things in order to buy rice and other supplies and they often hid male friends and relatives from the Japanese. They lived on soupy rice with vegetables and soya sauce and the occassional addition of chicken. The family all spoke Indonesian as well as Dutch so could get by well with the local people they knew.

At the end of the war my uncle Flip was very ill with osteomyalitis and with the Indonesians taking back control of the country it was decided that the family should return to Holland. It is believed that my greatgrandfather was executed around that time by the Indonesians because he had been a ‘foreign’ landowner and had at one time been in the Dutch military. As mentioned in my other blog, my grandfather had spent the last part of the war in singapore in Changi prisoner of war camp and also returned to Holland. It was on the way to Holland via Australia that my uncle Fred and Auntie Rita decided to stay in Australia.