There are few people around in 2021 who can give eye-witness accounts of the Indonesian war of independence, and their numbers are becoming ever smaller. However, Leiden University Library's oral history collections still let us listen to first-hand testimonies of the war. Oral accounts not only provide new insights into historical events but also add nuances or reflections on those events. The interview extracts presented in this theme offer a wide range of personal perspectives on the war in Indonesia.

It is hardly surprising that all the interviews reveal the lasting impact of the war. As a source, interviews are highly subjective. Recorded many years after the event, they demonstrate how unreliable our memories can be or how interviewees are influenced by subsequent debates about the war in society at large. Even so, many people can recall their experiences with an impressive eye for detail. The ‘voices from the war’ that are presented here include civilians, soldiers and many others too.

The aim in making the selection was to let people with very different experiences be heard. Most of the interviews come from the collection of the Indonesia Oral History Foundation (Stichting Mondelinge Geschiedenis Indonesië, SMGI) and were recorded in the 1990s and 2000s in the Netherlands. This colours the witness accounts. One priority was therefore to select interviews that present positions and experiences from the war that usually tend to be overlooked, both in the Netherlands and Indonesia. Another selection criterion was the historical importance of the interviews: each testimony and each perspective brings us closer to the historical reality of the war of independence in Indonesia.

5.1 Pangs of Conscience (interview)

After a tough period of forced labour in Japan, in 1945 the Indisch KNIL soldier Mr Belvroy had to face Indonesian revolutionaries. Not long afterwards, he was transferred to the Special Troops Depot (Depot Speciale Troepen, DST) commando unit. He ended up on South Sulawesi under the charge of Captain Raymond Westerling, where he had to apply the notorious ‘Westerling method’. This method involved using harsh tactics to obtain intelligence from the local people, which was then used to draw up a list of alleged ‘terrorists’.