The Linguist's Family

  In 1916, Peter’s parents accepted a contract with the Dutch Bible Society and moved to Tana Toraja, in what was then called the Dutch East Indies. Dr. Hendrik van der Veen, a linguist specializing in Indonesian languages, and his wife Louise, a talented nurse, found there a warm, generous, and deeply spiritual people, very unlike their demeaning caricature familiar in the Netherlands.

   Peter was born in 1927 and grew up in Tana Toraja at his family’s bustling mission post near Rantepao. His father studied the language and unique culture of the Torajas, known for their elaborate funeral rituals, megaliths, carved boat-shaped houses, and rock-cliff graves. The first Sa’dan-Toraja dictionary took shape and was finally completed in 1940 with a dedicated team of local scholars.

   When Peter was twelve, he moved to Bandung, Java for school, nearer to his uncle J.M.J. Schepper: a law professor in Batavia. Many of the Indonesian students in Schepper’s classes were involved in the independence movement; among them was Amir Sjarifuddin.

   Imperial Japan occupied the Indies in the Asia Pacific War in 1942, during World War II. The van der Veen family was confined to internment in camps run by the Japanese military. Peter survived six camps, including the Tjitjalengka railrway camp, but the family suffered irreparable losses. 

   When the war was over, Peter, his sister, younger brother, and father repatriated to the Netherlands. Peter’s father returned to Indonesia to complete the Bible translation, even as the war for Independence raged dangerously and was won! Dr. van der Veen returned to the Netherlands in 1956.

Marjolein van der Veen, Peter’s daughter, joins him as researcher and co-author to tell this story of an atypical Dutch family who were supporters of Indonesian independence. 

The Miraculous Fish Catch

Early in the morning of July 21, 1944, we assembled near the main gate, lined up in double rows of twenty for the tenko (daily roll-call) and waited for the commands: “Kiatski!, Kere!, Nore!, Bango!” Then we shouted our number in the row: “ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, ku, ju, ju-ichi,” and so on until twenty. Following the yasmicommand, we marched out to the Gunung Bohong, Lying Mountain, sweet potato field, supervised by guards riding their bikes alongside us, with their rifles strung over their shoulders. Some of us took a small cloth bag along, in case we caught a few snails or slugs or an occasional frog along the way to take back to the camp in the afternoon. Since I had not mastered the culinary art of snail preparation, I planned to sell my catch to fellow inmates and use the proceeds to buy some palm sugar or cassava flour at the camp store.

This day turned out differently. After the count, instructions were issued for 150 of us to stand aside. The others were ordered to march out, while our group had to wait. Several trucks drove in and patjols (hoes) were loaded onto one of them. We were commanded to climb into the other trucks and were driven off to an unknown destination. Although leery about what our guards had in mind for us, we welcomed the change of scenery as we were driven farther away from the camp. We had not seen this landscape for some time – bamboo-covered hills alternating with rice fields and villages, typical of the West-Java highlands and the Bandoeng plateau. 

Suddenly the trucks turned off the road onto a dirt track. After a few kilometers they came to a halt at a fish pond at the foot of a steep hill. We dismounted, were given the patjols and instructed to dig into the hill, dumping the soil to one side. We assumed it was to prepare an ammunition storage site. The work was onerous and grueling, especially in the hot tropical heat, and our backs became sunburned by the blistering sunrays. At noon we rested for our half-hour break, and were given a slice of bread which was to last us until dinner. 

During the break, I noticed some movement in the fish pond. I grabbed a bamboo stick lying nearby, took the rope that served as a belt around my waist, removed the safety pin from my identity number tag, and assembled these components into a fishing rod with hook. I used part of my slice of bread as bait. After a few minutes, a miracle happened: I caught my first live fish, some ten centimeters long! Using a fellow inmate’s little metal spoon, I cut off its head, hid the catch in my shorts pocket, and resumed work. 

Luckily this day we were not searched when returning to the camp. Back at our barracks I told my father and Hans Stoop about my catch. We cleaned the fish and lit a small fire outside using stolen wood from the roof-overhang, to roast the fish. We had not tasted fish for almost two years, and it happened to be my father's birthday. So, we celebrated with a few bites of roasted fish: a truly miraculous catch! In a letter written after the war, my father reminisced about the celebration with me and Hans Stoop: “What a delicious and cozy feast we had! During that whole time, you cared for me so well and faithfully, Peter. I will always continue to remember this with gratitude.” I did feel very loyal and devoted to my father, and was determined to do everything I could to help him through it, while struggling to survive myself.