In December 1949, the Netherlands was forced to hand over sovereignty of its colony, the Dutch East Indies, to the Republic of Indonesia. Their long domination of the Indonesian archipelago had come to a brutal end with the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949). Hundreds of thousands of Dutch who had called the former colony home repatriated to the metropole and 150,000 soldiers returned from a war that had proven futile. Their memories were not forgotten, though their compatriots did not care to hear their stories. During the decades that followed, the war faded from Dutch collective memory. Today it frequently makes the news.
Click here to read my full article published at University of Exeter's Imperial and Global Forum, September 29, 2021.
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