Notes : Willemina (1869-1945), my grandmother, left Holland
for the Netherlands East Indies in 1938 after the death of her husband Adeler
Frederich II. As she came to live in a small cottage on our compound, I came
to know her very well. My father told me that she was a perfect mother, and I
can say that she was a perfect grandmother too. She always made time for a
visiting grandchild, and there were always nice Indonesian sweets on the
table. On Saturday evenings the grandchildren came to her house for a game
of cards, and on Sunday mornings for an Indonesian breakfeast.
During
the Japanese occupation in world war II, she was put into a concentration
camp together with us (Lampersari Semarang). Being an excellent cook herself
she hated the bad food she got in the camp. She could not get herself to eat everything she was
able to get hold of, the only way to survive in these prison camps. She got
dysentry and died in March 1945. She was 75 years old. After the war my father took her remains
to the Netherlands. The urn with her ashes is now kept at the war memorial cemetry for victims of world
war 2 in Loenen, The Netherlands.
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