HIP reading and walk: Hatta en De Kom

• Date: 14 May 10:00 - 13:00
• Location: Bibliotheek Haagse Hout

Mohammad Hatta, later the first vice president of Indonesia, lived in the Bezuidenhout in the exact same period as Anton de Kom, who died resisting fascism. Separated only by 800 meters across Juliana van Stolberglaan, they visited each other in those years and inspired each other in their anti-colonialism.

Hatta wrote "Indonesia Free" and de Kom "We Slaves Of Suriname" there.

Recent archival research indicates that they had much more contact with each other than previously assumed.

Both left for their respective homelands in 1932 to put their money where their mouth was in the Bezuidenhout.

With varying degrees of success. De Kom was exiled to the Netherlands and returned to The Hague, while Hatta was exiled to the Digul camps.

Lecture and walk

In this lecture, former Bezuidenhouter Jos Belt, classmate of Anton de Kom's grandson at the St Bavo School, will tell you exactly what happened. Afterwards, he takes you on a walk along the various addresses of these fighters for justice for their country and people. And that in a neighborhood where almost all streets are named after colonial administrators.

The schedule is as follows:

10-11 a.m. the lecture (possibly with small walk-out/pause)

11:30-13:00 walk through the neighborhood.

Jos Belt

Jos Belt works as a director of the NOS News and studied Journalism at the Fontys Hogeschool in Tilburg. For this subject, he did research in the National Archives and the personal archive of Mohammad Hatta. Together with fellow community member Roeland Gelink, he is pushing for a memorial or street naming after Hatta and de Kom in the Bezuidenhout.

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