Indonesian Students on the Galgewater

As we turn through the pages of the population registry, we notice that in the first years of the 20th century, most buildings on the Galgewater housed students. This history may be tucked away, but it does show that student life in the Transvaal neighborhood goes back further than expected. Out of all the students living on the Galgewater that year, there was only one woman, called Françoise Theodore Voight. Françoise would remain affiliated with the university for the rest of her life: in 1938, she was promoted to Doctor in Literature and Philosophy, and she worked as collection specialist in the Leiden University Library until the ‘50s.

Françoise was born in Padang, on the Indonesian island Sumatra, where her father worked. She was certainly not the only one with colonial roots living in the Galgewater. In the population registry, we also find students from towns on Java, like Blitar, Semarang, Soerabaya, Batavia, but also from Nickerie in Suriname and from Curacao.

Two students with roots in Indonesia lived in city villa Naomi too: Adolf Maximiliaan Pino and Conno Alting Mees. Pido was born in Padang and studied Indology to later return to the Dutch Indies for an administrative career. He would eventually become resident (ruler) of Semarang. During his time as administrator he wrote short stories that could be classified as romantic and nostalgic. His daughter later wrote that Pino had always had one eye on the old world of the Dutch Indies. He wanted nothing to do with modern political movements that fought for an independent Indonesia.

Conno Alting Mees too was born in the Dutch Indies and would return there after his studies in the Netherlands. Alting Mees studied Malay languages and became a Malay language teacher. When the Dutch troops were sent to the Dutch Indies in 1945, he created a Malay language course for militaries, in which he taught them some remarkable phrases, such as: What will the natives think, when the first militaries to arrive there know their language and even good manners and correctness! History has taught us that this had the opposite effect: the Indonesians claimed independence and eventually rebelled against the Dutch military. After decolonization, Conno Alting Mees went on to teach in Bandung and later in Malaysia. After Indonesia’s independence, there was not much demand for his knowledge and expertise in the Netherlands.