Hi, firsttime here.
Let me just add some context to my question. My great-grandfather was a career soldier up untill he retired. He started his career by volunteering as one of the 10000 Dutch marines for the first political actions in 1947 and 1948 in Dutch Indonesia. Still today very little in my country is being taught about this war as it's kind of a black page in our history.
My great grandfather would never speak about what he had done in Indonesia but it is a well known fact that most soldiers there, especially the marines, were ordered to perform warcrimes. Now the current information I do have of him was that he was part of the motorised armor division of the marines. On one of the pictures that I own of his, that he took in his time in Indonesia, he is in some kind of scout car and on the other he photographed a tank called 'Harssens', a 105mm howitzer tank of the marbrig (marine brigade in Dutch)
I thought I'd add some more specific details near the end there. The tanks can easily be traced since there were very few of them that we received as surplus right after the war so maybe the information will help. I know that this tank is now in the armor museum in Overloon in a restored state.
I am currently in the process of getting my great grandfathers military records from the ministry of defence. I'm submitting a few pieces of information so that I'll be allowed to access his records.
Back to the point; I'm trying to find out what warcrimes were committed by the Dutch, if I can be specific, the marines. Because he never told us anything, which is understandable, I'd like to connect the dots as some kind of closure.
I've already reviewed a couple of pictures online and seeing similarities in pictures, he may or may not have been a part of the rawagede massacre.
Hope someone can help me out more and shed some light on the topic, thanks in advance.
The Dutch historiography and research into war crimes conducted by the Dutch army during the Indonesian independance war is not very well researched. This because it was 'actively forgotten' by the Dutch governement in that no serious research was conducted , people involved were encouraged to remain silent about it and the image of The Netherlands as tolerant and 'clean' colonists was protected.
At first the intervention was seen not as a war, but as an action against internal terrorists. The term 'politionele actie' was used, for a very long time, to avoid speaking about the Dutch intervention as being a war. Veterans were asked in loyalty to the Dutch Queen to 'keep all secrets inside the Dutch army'. And any appeal for political introspection and claims for reparations were subdued. A striking example is liberal politician and member of the Foreign affairs committe of the Tweede Kamer claiming as late as 2007 that: 'The Dutch military personel have generally behaved with utmost decency... No excuses shall be made' he even likened the proposed reparations to 'The Dutch paying reparations to the king of Spain for cuelties conducted during the Dutch independance war' (this is a comparison of striking sarcastic nature).
Most current research is centred around the Rawagede-debate. Rawagede was a massacre of over 430 indonesian males on 9 december 1947. The photos of this masascre were published in the NRC Handelsblad in the '90s and sparked the historical research into Dutch atrocities. Dutch historian C. Lorentz says that this might far from be an isolated case as 'Rawagede might be the tip of an iceberg'. Aside from Rawagede, though, not much of this history has been researched yet.
I am not involved in said research, as my thesis is on pre-war Dutch-Indonesian history, so I can't really comment on the role of the MarBrig or your great grandfathers regiment. I can give you some pointers to start looking. The books Generaal Spoor: triomf en tragiek van een legercommandant by Jaap de Moor and De brandende kampongs van Generaal Spoor by Remy Limpach are a good starting point. You can find them at the Amsterdam NIOD, the Dutch research institute for War and Genocide studies. The NIOD also employs most researchers that are currently working on the case of Dutch atrocities in Indonesia and has a huge archive. If you ask around there might be people who can point you in the right direction of finding more about the history of your great grandfather. The NIOD has a library that is open to the public and contains most books that will be relevant to your case.
I hope that helps you on your way. Good luck!
Sources:
Lorenz, C. (2015). 'De Nederlandse koloniale herinnering en de universele mensenrechten'. Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 128(1), 109-130.
Eickhoff, M. (2015). 'Weggestreept verleden: Nederlandse historici en het Rawagededebat'. Groniek, 45(194).