Customer Reviews

Silenced Voices: Uncovering a Family's Colonial History in Indonesia (Ohio RIS Southeast Asia Series)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was blown away by Hollander's book. `Silenced Voices' filled a void I did not know I had with regards to the history of the Dutch Indies. I too have family who had been imprisoned in the `Indies' by the Japanese. That's pretty much all I knew. Not until I had read Hollander's fascinating book did I understand what they must have gone through. It was never discussed in our family. Hollander's book is engaging. Her solid research helps paint a compelling picture of the rise and fall of the Dutch colonists. It helped me understand what happened and why. I guess what bothers me is that this chapter of Dutch history was never addressed in my (Dutch) history classes. Isn't it time for a hard look in the mirror? If you have read The Diary of Anne Frank, I would recommend reading Silenced Voices as it will complete your knowledge of Dutch history and may make you more understanding of those that miss the sense of belonging.

This book is a breakthrough in exposing the realities of the former Dutch East Indies and events thereafter. I found I had to read it in intervals as it left me in deep thought for days as I digest the information. As I too have roots in this era, I've read a lot of books available in the English language about the subject but never one with this perspective. Inez Hollander has been able to craft a personal story which unfolds layers of global historical events. As a result, providing a historical lesson about the colonization of Indonesia by The Netherlands and the birth of the Republic of Indonesia. The atrocities and raw details of war and revolution is a necessary evil to convey the weight of these events and the impact it made on the survivors and their descendants. Silence harbors the depth of great loss and pain and on a broader perspective also provides a form of denial. This book broke through that silence and has opened the floodgates to dialogue.

I admire Dr. Hollander's book for several reasons. She strikes a fine balance between the drama of her colonial family, the general history of the Dutch East Indies, and her own quest to find out the truth. To illustrate daily life in the colonies, she uses quotes from contemporary, and in many cases long forgotten novels. Though she often tries to imagine what her family's experience was like, she's never fanciful about it by inventing scenes or dialogues. This is a non-fiction book, and a serious work of history.

The book's biggest merit is that it makes history imaginable on a human level. One family's tragedy is only a footnote in the grand scheme of things, but the grand scheme is an abstraction. Dr. Hollander makes the reader feel history through a painstaking, and on occasion achingly incomplete reconstruction of human experience. The book climaxes in one very dramatic, and for the family traumatic, day during the 1945 revolution that led to the independence of Indonesia.

Geert van der Kolk

http://www.geertvanderkolk.com

Inez Hollander's painstaking detective work and perseverance come to fruition in this moving account of her family's rise to riches as plantation owners in colonial Indonesia, their later reversal of fortune, and the tragic consequences thereof during the aftermath of WW2. Despite the reticence of her fellow countrymen on this subject and the reluctance of the Dutch authorities to provide documentation, Ms. Hollander does a fantastic job of piecing together a poignant account of what happened to one family during a very dark time. It is to be hoped that this work will initiate a scholarly dialogue on this topic in her homeland, where it is evidently way overdue.

This book is a must for anyone interested in the history of Dutch colonialism, for all Dutch people, and certainly for all those, like me, whose family was part of the Dutch East Indies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Nothing is straightforward in history, but there are not many examples of how true this is like the period and situation described in Silenced Voices. Inez Hollander is a far cousin of mine and she provided a new, or better, renewed, angle on a history that is an indelible part of the narrative of my childhood, which included a house full of family consisting of impoverished repatriated former "colonialists" and even a "babu" who lived with us because she followed my grandmother to what for her was the end of the earth, and who cared for me in the 1950s and 1960s as tenderly as she had for my father in the 1920s. Many people the author mentions are my family too, and Tineke Francken is as dear to me as any parent can be, which made the experience of reading this book even more engrossing. I too, remember how the deaths in the Dutch East Indies of many uncles and cousins and the terrible years also many of my aunts and their children spent in Japanese prison camps were only whispered about in passing; how the horrors of the 1946-1949 Police Actions, in which my father participated, were rarely, if ever, discussed, although his terrifying and recurring nightmares made them very real. Amidst all the moral, political, factual and emotional confusion, however, one thing was pervasive and unchanging: the inescapable, deep and enduring love all these people felt for the magical world in which they grew up, a love that those Dutch who never set foot in the Dutch East Indies could and would not understand, but which has driven much of the colonial history, right alongside the greed and the adventure. Ultimately, however, it should not be forgotten that the entire Dutch polulation has profited for many generations from the colonial era and the spoils of the East, and not just those who went and made fortunes there - the guilt is borne by all.

This book is a lively, heart-wrenching read. It does an admirable job presenting a lesser known side to a period of conflict that still is difficult for many to discuss. And it will provide a fresh perspective for historians of southeast Asia, scholars of Dutch studies and those working in post-colonial studies. Highly recommended.

I stayed awake until 4 am to finish reading this book. I learned so much about world history, Dutch culture, and the human impact of wars and why they are fought.

After some distance to think through the story more, I plan to reread the entire book. It is a story that needed to be told and the author has told it so well and in a very personal way. Highly recommended.

This is a response to the Simon Richter review on this page; I (the author of this book) think the review is unfair and misses the point of the story.
Here is why:

Beste Simon, wat ben jij boos! Maar ik ben ook boos, hoor!
As an author one should never stoop to defend oneself against the gall of reviewers who have the divine powers to destroy a book with a single stroke of the pen, but it is a free country, so here I go.

Let me put upfront that your family history in Indonesia is obviously very different from mine and every family has its own stories and truths. I do acknowledge that there were many Dutch people in the Indies, working as teachers, doctors and missionaries who did a lot of good and noble work. Even the planters (my family), and I mention this in every lecture I have given on the book, invested in the infrastructure and the local economy, which is one side of the story we are not to forget either. When the Dutch left, I say this in my lecture too, they took with them three centuries of tropical agriculture knowledge, which was a brain drain for Indonesia.

What I find suspect, extremely suspect, is that the information you distill from my book (greed, white-native hatred,-- a Paul Johnson quote, not my words) seem to come from the three chapters that google books scanned: did you actually buy the book and read it as a whole? If you did, I apologize for surmising you did not...and by all means take the book back for a refund!

If you did not, you ought to realize that part of unearthing my family history was rooted in the question why my two aunts (girls of 15 and 13 at the time) were hacked to pieces by an Indonesian mob. Dear Simon, can you tell me where the excessive amount of violence during the bersiap and the revolution came from?

Your other critique that I have not been to Indonesia is true. In defense, I never received a research grant to write this book. I wrote it at night when my kids were in bed. During the day, I had a job, teaching. In the summers I worked to supplement my income and a trip to Indonesia was just not in the cards for me...It was not because I was lazy or negligent: it was because, dare I say it? I did not have the money and I still don't as long as I lie awake at night, wondering how I am going to get my kids through college.

But the argument is somewhat lame: I wrote about the Indies, a society that no longer exists, except in books, letters etc. Can a biographer of Multatuli, no let's take Joseph Conrad, write a biography of Conrad even though he can never meet him in person because he is dead? Can we write about the Middle Ages even though we live in the 21st century? Are you an expert on colonial society because you have been so fortunate as to travel there so often? It is a philosophical argument for sure and one that has been raised by historians many times. No, I have not been in Indonesia but many readers who were there at the time as the children of teachers, doctors, missionaries and planters have told me the book tells it how it was. It is an authentic book they say and that was my mission: to write a true story from the perspective of one family against the larger backdrop of colonial society and times as a whole. You alas think the book biased and under-researched: I don't know how those labels correlate with all the comments of the people who feel the book is real.

However, for the sake of a complete record I do encourage you to write and publish your own family history that is unbiased and, since you condemn my book as liberal and politically correct, conservative (?) and politically incorrect? Good luck finding a publisher, and a university press at that.

In Dutch we say: Maak van je hart geen moordkuil (Don't turn your heart into executioner's pit); you obviously have a "clean" heart and conscience after writing that review and belittling four years of hard work...I thought I would do the same and tell my readers that I give you one star for taking the time at least to write that generous review,

Yours truly,

Inez Hollander Lake

After reading all the comments, I am afraid to read this book. I grew up in Indonesia. I was born to missionary parents in 1939. The years that followed were the most traumatic of my life and have left me permanently scarred along with my family. To read a book that questions the whole right for my parents to be there in a colonial period is so far from my experience that I don't know if I want to deal with that, as well as having to deal with the horrible pain I grew up with during WWII.
Maybe Mrs. Hollander has very good reason to bring up that period to our readers. Let me assure you, all governments serve up pain for some and are easier on others. By all means read this book because there is truth to what she writes about, but don't forget that her pain was not all that made up the experience of Colonial Indonesia.
I grew up side by side with Indonesians, Indos, and Westerners. None seemed better than the other. They all had shortcomings but all were wonderful in their own ways. I loved Indonesia. I always will, eventhough the pain I experienced there was almost a life wrecker. I am thankful for the years I had there and I hope Mrs. Hollander now feels at peace with her heritage. It is ok to hurt as long as you keep loving. Discrimination is all over the world. It is NEVER right, but trust me, love for each other has always won that "war". Among us kids we were all the same.
Maybe one day I will "feel the need" to read a book that condems colonialism but for now I will just remember the Dutch, the Indos, the Chinese, the Americans, the British as just the same: my friends!

Among the reviews below there is a negative review by one Simon Richter (my father) and a response by Inez Hollander (the author) to that review in which she assumes that I (also Simon Richter, professor at the University of Pennsylvania) am the one who penned the original negative review. I did not. I have apologized to Inez for this confusion and would merely like to state that I do not make a habit of ripping the work of colleagues in public forums such as this.