The interviews were conducted as part of Dirk Vlasblom’s publication Papua: a history. This book covers five centuries of Papua’s history, focusing on the period from 1945 onwards and with a special focus on the transfer from the Netherlands to Indonesia in 1962. The book focuses on the perspective of Papuans.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1920 – 2004.
They mainly discuss Indonesia and West Papua. Themes include World War II, Indonesian revolution, transfer to Indonesia in 1962, occupation.

The collection has been digitised and stored permanently at an e-depot.

Dirk Vlasblom (1952) studied cultural anthropology in Utrecht. With a brief interruption, he has been a correspondent for NRC Handelsblad in Jakarta since 1990. He previously published Jakarta, Jakarta – Reportages from Indonesia (1993), In a warung on the South Sea – Stories from Indonesia (1998) and Anchors & Chains – A Rotterdam Chronicle (2001).
In a compelling way, the author tells the stories of Papua. For this, he drew on unique sources. Protagonists and eyewitnesses speak for themselves, often for the first time. The archives of mission and mission were systematically researched for this book, also for the first time.
With this magisterial work, the author gives the Papuans their history.

Journalist and author Boi Antoin has built up an extensive collection of Bonairean cultural heritage on Bonaire in recent years. Oral history has been recorded primarily through the program “Herensia” (Heritage). Many of these recordings are online.

Interviews have been conducted in Papiamentu. Dutch interviews were conducted in the collection Makambanan na Boneiru (Dutch on Bonaire). More information about the various collections recorded by Bòi Antoin can be found here.

Journalist and author Bòi Antoin has built an extensive collection of Bonairean cultural heritage on Bonaire in recent years. Makambanan na Boneiru (Dutch on Bonaire) is a small portion, 22 recordings, of the entire oral history collection that Bòi Antoin has built on Bonaire.

The interviews can be viewed online.

To give an idea of what life was like in the 1970s when Green lived among the Matawai, original photographs from the Edward C. Green Papers are scattered throughout, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute

Green, an anthropologist, collected notes, photographs and audio recordings made during his time among the Matawai in the early 1970s, all of which were recently donated to the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution’s Recovering Voices programme, three Matawai researchers had access to this valuable historical material for the first time and were allowed to take back copies to share with the rest of their community.

Photograph from the Edward C. Green papers

For his research on the history of South Sulawesi, in particular political-military developments during the Indonesian revolution, Willem IJzereef conducted some 15 interviews with former government officials and former military personnel.
Records of the interviews and research correspondence are also included in the archive.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1905 – 1986.
They mainly discuss Indonesia, South Sulawesi. Themes include World War II, Indonesian revolution, Domestic Administration, government officials, South Celebes affair.

Publications linked to the collection: IJzereef, W. (1984). The South Celebes affair: captain Westerling
and the summary executions. Batavian Lion.

Archive and inventory no: D H 1284. Thirteen cassette tapes have been transferred to the AV collection of the KITLV (D AUD 1085 – 1097)

The interviews with Marga Klompé (1912-1986) and Joseph Luns (born 1911) were conducted for a doctoral thesis on Roman Catholicism and KVP politics in the Netherlands. Klompé became a member of parliament for the KVP in the late 1940s and also held several international positions. In the 1950s and 1960s, she was minister – the first woman in the Netherlands – of Social Work and CRM respectively in several cabinets. Later, she developed many activities the church peace movements. The KVP-er Luns held the foreign ministry continuously from 1956 to 1971. In 1972, he became secretary-general of NATO. Shortly afterwards, he resigned from the KVP.

The interviews were made for the three-hour documentary film History of a Place, which Hans Verhagen made together with Armando in 1978 for VPRO television about the concentration camp Amersfoort (municipality of Leusden). They approach their subject as the history of the (‘guilty’) site. Discussed are: the origins of the camp in 1939 as an army site for mobilised Dutch soldiers, its function as the German occupier’s concentration camp during World War II, its use as a repatriation camp the first months after liberation and as an internment camp for Dutch SS and NSB members immediately afterwards, its demolition in the late 1960s in favour of the new building for the De Boskamp Police Training Centre. The focus, however, is on the period when the camp served as a concentration camp for the German occupiers. The film was broadcast as the final episode of the series Het gat van Nederland, on 14 May 1978. Many of the interviews are partly conducted walking, including a film camera, through the area around the camp.
As ex-prisoners, Van Dam, Kleinveld, Molenaar, Zoetmulder, Wolders, Van den Burg, Van den Berg, Robeer, chaplain Slots and Schols recount their experiences in the camp. They had mostly ended up there because of resistance activities. They talk about the camp executioners Berg and Kotälla, among others. Also
The following are also interviewed: the contractor who built the barracks in 1939 (Herzinger); the caretaker of the cemetery near the camp, who buried the dead from the camp but also smuggled the living from the site (Jansen); a municipal worker from Leusden who helped prisoners escape whenever possible,
sending letters etcetera (Schut); the son of the owner of Hotel Oud-Leusden, which had been requisitioned by the Germans during the occupation period and was located right next to the camp (Jets); the house painter who painted the barracks both in 1939 and in 1945, shortly after liberation (Van Hoven); the camp’s Amersfoort vegetable supplier (Van Zomeren); the demolisher of the last barracks in the late 1960s (Van Essen); the German Engbrocks, who had been living in the Netherlands for some time before the war, and who was trained as a punishment to become an SS camp guard in Amersfoort in 1941, and was called the “good German” by many prisoners because he tried to help them the employee of the Dutch Red Cross Van Overheem, who, especially in the last year of the war, tried to get as many food parcels into the camp as possible and who was called the ‘white angel of Amersfoort’ by the prisoners (she also played an important role in the camp in the few months it served as a repatriation centre for Dutch people returning from Germany); the camp commander after the liberation (Van Zwol); the director of the Police Training School De Boskamp, whose institute was established on the site in the late 1960s (Steenlaar); some unnamed students and a sports teacher from the police training school on the past of the site in short interviews.

Interviewees: Frans van de Berg, Jan van den Burg, N. van Dam, Willy Engbrocks, R. van Essen, H. Hertzinger, A. van Hoven, Evert Jansen, Martin Jets, Gerrit Kleinveld, Rev. O. Molenaar, mrs. van Overheem, Henk Robeer, Joep Schols, Arie Schut, Jean Slots, M. van Steenlaar, Hans Wolders, S.H.A.M. Zoetmulder, A. van Zomeren, C. van Zwol, some anonymous persons.

The interviews were conducted for the purpose of and incorporated into the film Drugs, stuff for thought (René Swetter, SFW 1972).

Five interviews concern users of soft drugs and (former) addicts of hard drugs. The individuals’ experiences range from twice
ever smoked a stickie to twelve years of opium addiction. One interview concerns the wife of a (former) opium addict.

Drugs, stuff for thought made on the initiative of Amsterdam psychiatrist Peter Geerlings.
Faced with a great demand for information on drugs, Geerlings thought it necessary to add a film to the drug information package in circulation in the Netherlands (such as a programme by the Kritische Filmers from Breda, broadcasts by various broadcasters and school television and a series of publications).
Geerlings particularly encountered a lack of information among people who deal with young people on a daily basis at schools, social academies, and training and youth centres. The film: Drugs, stuff for thought, is mainly intended for them. However, the makers of the film will also explore whether the viewing audience can be extended to young people themselves- “The problem with this, however,” says director René Swetter, “is that there are quite a few people who fear that young people interpret this information about drugs as advertising.” A fear that seems unfounded. When you watch and listen to the seven young people who talk about their experience with drugs in the film, you don’t undergo a reaction of: hey, I need to so as well. There is only one boy in the entire film (Jaap, 32, publisher and unmarried says the commentary) who is able to integrate smoking hashish well into his role in social life. The other interviewees smoke. as a reaction to their environment and none of them seem really happy about it. As a result, the film creates a somewhat distorted picture of drug use in the Netherlands. After all, Leuw reaffirmed this with his research among schoolchildren: most users stick to some Incidental experimentation with cannabis.

DRUGS, STUFF TOT NADENKEN, René Swetter, 1972

DRUGS, STUFF TOT NADENKEN (korte versie), René Swetter, 1975

link to archive

Discussion film (short version) that focuses on breaking taboos around drug use.
After images of stimulants whose use is integrated into social life, such as alcohol, tobacco, sedatives and stimulants, fragments of street interviews on drug use follow. This is followed by interviews with users of soft and hard drugs.

Interviews with mr J.M.L.Th. Cals, mr G. van Hall, mr J.M.A.H. Luns, drs J.W. de Pous, prof A. Vondeling for the Haagse Post.

Subject: Dutch politics, Amsterdam, Bijlmermeer, EEC
Interviewers: J. van Tijn, P. Remarque, G.B.J. Hiltermann

Transcription: summary in the form of articles in the Haagse Post

Moluccans in the Netherlands

The interview project was conducted as part of the presentation and disclosure of collections. The purpose of the interviews was to capture stories for the renewed permanent exhibition starting in 2008.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1930 – 2008.
They mainly discuss the Netherlands, Indonesia and the Moluccas. Themes include KNIL, military police, residential areas Zeeland, residential area Elzenpasch, women’s emancipation, Moluccan church, management of residential areas.

Interviewers: Jeanny Vreeswijk-Manusiwa and Nanneke Wigard.