26 july 1950, exactly 75 years since the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) was disbanded. But with its disbandment, the scars did not disappear.
My father was conscripted at the age of 19 and deployed to the former Dutch East Indies during what were then called “police actions” – in reality, a dirty guerrilla war.
He rarely did not spoke about it. But the trauma lived on – in silence, within him, and in our family. A heavy atmosphere hung over our home. We didn’t know, because my father remained silent. After his death, I began my search. I requested his Marine service number and was confronted with the reality:
As a young conscript, he had taken part in a violent colonial war.
To make the impact tangible, to not remain helpless on the sidelines as a victim, I created a sculpture in 2010, titled Broken Body. An act of engagement – and an attempt at healing. I sculpted limbs, fired them in the kiln, and then bricked them together. I placed them on white pedestals – small coffins, in which the unspoken was stored. As if I could reverse the situation.
As if I could make the body – and its history – whole again.
📸 Recently, I stood with my son beside that same sculpture at Museum Bronbeek.
He is working on a documentary about the impact of this war on the third generation. Between the sculpture and us, an open conversation emerged.
About silence. About inherited trauma. About guilt. For me, it felt like a symbolic moment of giving back:
to lay down the burden we carried as a family at the feet of Dutch society. A society to which my father gave his integrity, and for which he was burdened with guilt.
Because this story is bigger than us. It calls for collective bearing. For acknowledgment of what has been silenced for too long. What was broken, I brought together again in clay.
📖 You can read the interview here: https://harryvanaken.nl/indie-veteraan-trauma-3-generaties-pijn/
