The connection with the Dutch East Indies

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A historical biography about an ambitious, hardworking, and socially conscious resident of Deventer. He and his family sought their fortune in the Dutch East Indies, but encountered both happy moments and misfortune and tragedy. After a career in the military where he served in the engineering corps' communication division before and during World War I, Bram Waanders saw an opportunity to work at the Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone Service in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch government began to see the East Indies as more than just a colony to exploit and invested in telephony and infrastructure. While this was a significant change, significant inequalities persisted between and within the various ethnic groups in the East Indies. Bram also saw inequality within his own profession. He was committed to actively combating this through his involvement in the union, the press, and politics. The crisis of the 1930s worsened the situation, but it also gave him a reason to step up his efforts. The rising ultra-nationalism and fascism in Europe and Asia were of a completely different nature, and threatened the existence and freedom of the colony. The consequences for Bram and his family would be dramatic. Anton Waanders (1970) has been researching his family history since 1997 and has published several genealogical works. With his latest book, he has taken a different path by writing a narrative biography. Using sources from the National Archive, the Royal Library, and family collections, the life of Bram Waanders and his family has been reconstructed. Bram should have been mentioned on the memorial monument for the fallen of the Communication Division, which was unveiled in the 1990s, but he was not. Waanders has successfully rectified this omission by giving a face to his grandfather's forgotten cousin and his East Indies family members in this story.