Ode to Evy PoetirayAcknowledge the Republic!
About
Ode by Cerita Fakta Foundation to Evy Poetiray.
In Amsterdam, Evy Poetiray was national secretary of the Indonesian student association Perhimpoenan Indonesia (PI), an anti-colonial association that, together with the CPN - after resisting the German occupiers during WWII - fought against the Dutch plan to forcibly reverse the 1945 Indonesian Independence.
Poetiray became known during a mass demonstration with 20,000 listeners in the Amsterdam Market Hall (1946) by the slogan “Recognize the Republic!
Evy Poetiray
Evy grew up in a Protestant girls' orphanage in Surabaya. Just before WWII, she came to the Netherlands to study.
Evy lives with her two-year-old sister Reny in the colony of the Dutch East Indies. Their father works at the PTT but dies of TB when Evy is two. The girls live with their mother in Surabaya. When Evy is 8 years old, their mother also dies. The sisters grow up in a Protestant girls' orphanage and attend Mulo. Evy later uses the money from the orphan's pension for her education.
While she is already working as a qualified pharmacy assistant, the girls hear that as civil servant children, they are entitled to a one-way ticket to the Netherlands. Reny moves forward. Evy follows a few months later to train as a chemical analyst.
It is shortly before World War II breaks out when Poetiray arrives in Amsterdam.
Like all Indonesian students in the Netherlands, she turns against fascism and the German occupiers. She is an active member of Perhimpoenan Indonesia (PI), the Indonesian anti-colonial student organization in the Netherlands that opposes the German occupation from the beginning of the war. In addition to being a courier, she regularly hid people in hiding on her own floor. Together with Marangin Siantoeri, her later husband, she organized meetings for student resistance groups and Indonesians in hiding in 1943. Her work in the resistance included being a courier for De Waarheid, Vrij Nederland and Het Parool.
After liberation, Poetiray becomes national secretary of the student union. Through the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN), the PI is involved in opposing the Dutch plan to reverse the 1945 Indonesian Independence by military force. Poetiray is an ardent advocate for an independent Indonesia, known by the slogan, “Recognize the Republic!
When the CPN joined with the Social Democrats in organizing a mass demonstration in the Amsterdam Market Hall in February 1946, Social Democrat alderman Hugo de Dreu suggested Poetiray as a speaker on behalf of the PI - hoping she would present a less radical sound than her male colleagues. De Dreu had guessed wrong.
Quote: “People of the Netherlands, art thou prepared to recognize one hundred percent the right of self-determination of the people of Indonesia? That was what Evy Poetiray, as a board member of Perhimpoenan Indonesia, asked on Feb. 2, 1946, in the Markthallen in Amsterdam. The answer from the audience was a resounding yes. It would unfortunately be different. Her communist resistance friends continued to support her, but the socialist comrades who founded the PvdA seven days after her speech dropped her and the Indonesians like a brick. The PvdA backs the decision to support troop transports to Indonesia for the so-called Police Actions, known in Indonesia as, Aksi Militer Belanda 1 /2.
During 1946, Evy Poetiray, her fiancé and several hundred more PI members returned to their homeland on the cargo ship “Welgelegen,” where, shortly after the birth of their first child, her husband was taken from his bed at night during the police action.
The memory of Indonesian students who joined the resistance during World War II fades from public memory shortly after the Proclamation of the Republik Indonesia on Aug. 17, 1945.
In 2008 and 2010, journalist Herman Keppy interviewed Evy Poetiray. The interview, about Indonesian and East Indies resistance in the Netherlands, can be listened to at getuigenverhalen.nl. For the teaching package 'Real Heroes' developed in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, Herman Morssink painted her portrait. Written out of history by the Netherlands but brought into the limelight by Amsterdam-Zuidoost.
In Amsterdam-Zuidoost the teaching package 'In het krijt staan' makes clear that besides Dutch resistance heroes, people from Indonesia, Suriname and the Antilles also gave their lives for the freedom of the Netherlands. The curriculum aims to involve today's multicolored generation in the history of World War II.
- Herman Keppy, ‘Interview 04 Evy Siantoeri-Poetiray, Indonesisch en Indisch verzet in Nederland’, opgenomen14 februari 2010 http://getuigenverhalen.nl/interview/
- Herman Keppy, ‘Een heldin is weggegaan’, Java Post, 28 augustus 2016
- Portret, included in the curriculum ‘Echte Helden’, Stichting 4/5 mei Comité Amsterdam-Zuid
- https://ceritafakta.nl/pahlawan-maluku-10-evy-poetiray/
- https://vimeo.com/911791747