30-4-2025

The 4th Philippus Corts Fund grant was awarded to Melle van Maanen, André Schram and Patricia Liem for their book projects. The goal of the PCF is to support research and publications on the shared history of Indonesia and The Netherlands in the period 1602 – 1949.

Philippus Corts Fund

The Philippus Corts Fund (PCF) has been realized to support research, to preserve original source materials and make these materials accessible (in local languages and Dutch) in Indonesia and The Netherlands, pertaining to the shared history of these two areas in the period 1602 – 1949, with special attention to the periods of the VOC and the Second World War in Asia.

Applying to PCF is open to students and researchers working in the Netherlands, or to a joint Dutch Indonesian team, conducting scientific research in collections in The Netherlands or Indonesia in line with the PCF goals. Each year approximately € 15,000 will be available. The maximum amount that can be applied for is € 7,500.

The PCF is managed by the Vereniging KITLV.

Winners 4th PCF grant

In the fourth subsidy round of the Philippus Corts Fund the PCF grant was awarded to Patricia Liem for her project to translate the book Dalem tawanan Djepang [In Japanese captivity] in Dutch (€ 3000); Melle van Maanen for his project to translate the book Indonesia and the Amsterdam School in Indonesian (€ 3220) and André Schram for his project to translate the book The story of Johan, three years in Japan but not voluntary  in Indonesian, Japanese and English (€ 2750).

Patricia Liem
Translation of Dalem tawanan Djepang [In Japanese captivity] in Dutch

In this book, the well-known journalist and writer Nio Joe Lan (1904-1973) describes the years of internment during the Japanese occupation 1942-1945. The book, originally in Malay, was published for the first time in 1946, had a reprint in 2008 and appeared in Bahasa in 2024. In April 1942, Nio and 500 other Chinese were arrested by the Japanese. They were suspected to be socially or politically active, to have ties with the Dutch government or to sympathize with China because of the raging Sino-Japanese war. Among those arrested were many journalists. Nio was interned in Bukit Duri,  Serang and in Cimahi.

In his characteristic modest way, Nio describes prison life in camp Cimahi with Dutch, British and other internees. As living conditions deteriorate, the morale is maintained as far as the camp guards allow. Making music on home-made instruments, studying and reading, goes along with hunger and deprivation. Never before has a three-and-a-half-year continuous imprisonment in Japanese internment camps been described in such detail from the Chinese perspective. It is a unique account, which is now available to Dutch readers. 

Patricia Liem obtained her PhD on the legal position of the Chinese in the Dutch East Indies 1848-1942. She is chair of the Chinese Indonesian Heritage Center (CIHC). One of her driving forces is to bring the colonial and postcolonial history of the Chinese from Indonesia closer to the public, among other things through accessible publications.

Melle van Maanen
Translation of the book Indonesia and the Amsterdam School: When culture crosses the ocean in Indonesian

The Amsterdam School is famous for its expressive brick architecture and richly decorated interiors. In the early the twentieth century, the Amsterdam School caused a stir by creating housing blocks and public works that were built in the city expansions in the Netherlands. But what sources of inspiration informed these wonderous designs? Although the Amsterdam School is considered to be genuine Dutch design, it was in fact strongly interwoven with Indonesia, the former Dutch East Indies. The book Indonesia and the Amsterdam School: When Culture Crosses the Ocean shows how Indonesian art and building forms have shaped the Amsterdam School. In this way, the book brings together architectural and design history with colonial history. 

The contributions to the book were written by both Dutch and Indonesian authors in the form of articles, essays and interviews. These discuss shared design histories in the form of buildings, objects, designers and developments or reflect on them from a contemporary perspective. Doing so, the book aims to contribute to a dialogue about the shared colonial past and to stimulate mutual understanding in both the Netherlands and Indonesia. It is for this reason, with the support of the Philippus Corts Fund, that the book that was originally published in English has been translated into Indonesian as Indonesia dan Amsterdam School: Ketika Budaya Melintasi Samudra.

Melle van Maanen is curator at Museum Het Schip, the museum for the Amsterdam School movement of architecture and applied arts and public housing in Amsterdam. In 2022-2023, he created the exhibition Indonesia and the Amsterdam School in collaboration with Anita Halim Lim and Gadis Fitriana Putri. In 2024-2025, this exhibition was shown in an adapted form at the Erasmus Huis in Jakarta. Melle also works as a historical researcher at the Vrije Universiteit within the Global Political History research group. In this role, he does research on the Indonesian War of Independence with Prof. Dr. Susie Protschky, focusing on photography, oral history and memory. He publishes reviews in The Dutch Review of Books, among others. Melle studied Heritage and Memory Studies at the University of Amsterdam and Colonial and Global History at Leiden University. For his studies in Leiden, he did an internship at the KITLV-KNAW in 2021-2022.

André Schram
Translation of the book The story of Johan, three years in Japan but not voluntary  in Indonesian, Japanese and English 

The objective of this project is to make the textbook The story of Johan, three years in Japan but not voluntary available in Indonesian, Japanese and English. The book contains the story of a young Dutch navy sailor who was taken to Japan as a prisoner during World War II. Johan worked as a forced laborer in Japan for three years. The aim is, using his story, to have the war history in Asia more widely known and to emphasize the importance of processing and commemorating the events which occurred during that war time. 

The joint involvement in WWII/Asia of the Netherlands, Japan and Indonesia and also the USA, GB and Australia and Johan’s past during the war forms the basis for the publication of this renewed lesson booklet in the other languages. The lesson booklets will become available online during the second half of 2025.

André Schram studied Biochemistry (University of Amsterdam) and obtained a PhD in the field of congenital metabolic diseases. After his retirement as Professor at the University of Amsterdam, he started to focus on education for young people about the Second World War in Asia. This arose from the fact that his father was held as a prisoner of war in a camp in Nagasaki/Japan during WWII under harsh conditions. The importance of commemorating, reconciling and learning from history is emphasized. Based on the above, André Schram has written the lesson booklet The story of Johan which is available in Dutch for interested teachers and students here.