Adolf Heuken 17 July 1929 - 25 July 2019

Only one week after his 90th anniversary, the Jesuit Priest Father Adolf Heuken died in the Carolus Hospital of Jakarta. He was buried in the Jesuit house in Girisonta  ('Mountain of the Saints), south of Semarang, lucky that he could stay until his last days in his beloved Jakarta and not in the somewhat isolated compound where older Jesuits live together.
He was born in Coesfeld, Germany and went to a secondary school in Münster, graduating in 1950, somewhat late because of the troubles of WWII in Germany. We do not know how he survived that difficult period. He was ordained a priest in 1961 and came to Indonesia in 1963 in a period when no new Dutch missionaries were given visa. He studied perhaps some Javanese but soon concentrated on Indonesian and was already in 1963 in Jakarta, in the Mangga Besar parish. In 1964 he was asked by collaegue Jesuit Joop Beek to work for the Mary Congregation, in 1967 given a new name as Christian Life Communities. He gave his publishing house later (1970) the same acronym of CLC but now as Cipta Loka Caraka, meaning a place (loka) from where a herald (caraka) spreads good ideas (cipta).
Heuken had a splendid, clear and concise style of writing and he wrote a long series of pamphlets for the students of the sodality (about one hunderd small booklets, between 50-100 pages) with themes like the practise of living in good health (especially mental), how to communicate, some doctrinal expositions of the Catholic faith.
He lived in Menteng first in Kramat, soon aftwerwards in the beautiful house Jalan Mohamad Yamin 37, together with the leader of the Mary Congregation Joop Beek, who also was the leader of Khasebul, the anti-Comunist and strongly pro-Catholic political training of students. The relation between the two Jesuits, Beek and Heuken, was not so good, because Heuken found Beek too much involved in politics and too hardline, negative about 'the enemy',  first the Communists, later also the Muslims. Heuken did not like to talk about this matter.

Heuken was not only a good writer, he was also a keen manager and had many responsible functions in Jakarta. He could become apparently very quickly anIndonesian citizen. He was a functionary at the office of civil marriage (1964-1984), lecturer in education at the Atma Jaya University, lecturer in ethics at St. Paul's major seminary, Yogyakarta. Between 1968 and 1984 he was secretary of  the Conference of Indonesian Bishops. He was lecturer in Ethics at the Driyarkara School of Philosophy for 20 years. Also very active in German-speaking parishes in Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. He was a member of the board of the German International School in Jakarta. For this work he received a German cultural award in 2008.
He wrote a German-Indonesian dictionary, but most of all became known for his many publications on the history of Jakarta. The Indonesian government gave him in 2013 an award for this cultural work and I now from him personally that he was very glad with this honour.

He was for many years active for the Catholic weekly Hidup. He also published a nice Catholic Encyclopaedia in Indonesian first in 5 volumes, later in 9 volumes. He liked to give a precise but clear text, as well as lively and nice illustrations, photographs as well as drawings for which he hired a capable (and somewhat pricely) man.
He was a middle-of-the-road theologian, not openly liberal, not conservative, just good argumentations were important for him. In the mansion where he stayed in Menteng he also held his wonderful collection of books on Jakarta. During our meetings in my 'Catholic period'  (after I had a more 'Islamic period' in the 1970s and 1980s) he joined the work for the ecumenical book on A History of Christianity in Indonesia. He had no clear successor, even for his books he had until recently not yet found a good place. He was sometimes complaining about his health, but liked to see guests and had a wonderful sense of humour. In memoria eterna erit justus, 'This righteous man will be remembered forever' (Psalm 112:6).

The Glory of Batavia in Lelystad

Colonialism, including VOC history, nowadays often is described as something negative. It should have brought other countries in a situation of dependency and poverty. Especially the period 1945-1949 is now under scrutiny as to Indonesia. However, there is still are groups in the Netherlands who cherish sympathy for aspects of the colonial past. One is the group of 'lovers of the classical vessels of the VOC period'. In 1985 one such group started building a replica of the sailer Batavia who in 1629 went to the Indies and by chance 'discovered' islands off the Western coast of Australia. The boat was also a teaching/learning project for people how to work with ancient technology tobuild such a wooden vessel. Now it is a tourist attraction, supported by many volunteers.

In the new 12th province of the Netherlands, of the 'new land' a reclamation from the former Southern Sea, since the dyke of the 1930s a lake, Ijsselmeer, the capital is Lelystad, after engineer Lely who designed this great project for safety and more land. Inorder to make the capital of the province more interesting, two museums were built, one about the history of the place, former sea with many ship wrecks, another about the replica of the VOC ship.
We went here with Kobayashi Yasuko, colleague from Nanzan University in Nagoya. She is a specialist of Indonesian Islam, mostly about Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, knowing many details of the internal strategies, politics and quarrels of the two great organizations.

The boat has four decks, only four toilets for some 250 personnel, and was built for trade, but there was no VOC trade without guns and canons!
Next to the ship in the water, which could be visited, there was a museum where a group of some 20 volunteers are building a copy 1:10 of another vessel. The love for boats can be shown in many different ways (see last picture below).
The town of Lelystad was considered as somewhat boring and not really attractive, because it is at a distance of more than 30 minutes from Amsterdam. In order to attract more people also a mall was built in traditional style,called Bataviastad or City of Batavia. It looks a bit like a reconstruction of the town of Batavia, built 400 years ago in 1619 by Jan Pieterszoon Coen but is now filled with outlet shops, promising cheap prices, as well a numerous restaurants. For those who know a nice trip through a quiet part of the Netherlands to some colonial past.