My Name Is...

Nederlands

Eddy Wahr, born in Hongkong in the Raffles Hotel on 1st January 1910, approximately 12:00h in the afternoon. My mother, born in Amoerang (Indonesia, Northern Sulawesi) from a Eurasian father with a Dutch last name (Walsen) and a Minahasa mother (Tambajong), was abducted by my father (a Swiss national, born in Basel). From this marriage my sisters Lotty and Ecca, also my brother Adolf were born, respectively 10, 8 and 6 years older than I was. So, I was the youngest in the nest; much later I learned from my mother that we also had a brother Charlie, who unfortunately died upon birth. [As a civil engineer my father had to travel a lot, which obliged us to move to Kowloon, where we rented a floor close to the Kowloon ferry harbour]. It was not really a glitzy neighbourhood, but as far as I can remember, for us it was an environment where all of us kids enjoyed our lives; a neighbourhood with all kinds of nationalities.

My father was terribly strict. God help us if we did something wrong or were up to mischief! He was fast with his hands, because before you knew it you would catch a blow. I was still too small to get my share. He mainly targeted my eldest sister Lotty!. My father hit her often, and my mother, in as many times, would catch the blows when she jumped inbetween.

My father had many friends, (especially Germans) with whom he would spend his time. From my mother I later heard that he earned very much money, especially when building railroads in China. When he had stayed away for a long time and came back to Kowloon again, he would make my mother save the money. Mama would tell us that she always would stash away part of the money, so my father would not be able to squander it away (my father didn't know that). He was always very generous when he spent time with his friends. We always thought it strange that he never brought his German friends home to us.

But we did regularly see an English captain of a ship. His name was Sanders and he was very friendly with us. I still remember well that, when his ship was in the harbour, he would frequently visit us. Then we would all cozily sit together. We joked, laughed and drank together. He often brought us presents and sweets, which us kids of course enjoyed very much. I remember him as an elderly friendly man. One time when he was at home and I sat on his lap, I saw that he was playing with his teeth. When I asked him why he did that, he took out his false teeth from his mouth to show them to me. I was frightened and jumped off his lap and hid under the bed, that's how scared I suddenly became of him. Mama comforted me then, but I never understood how he did that and from that moment onwards I had a holy respect for that man.

At another time when he was at our house again and all of us sat together, my father was also present, uncle Sanders put a dollar in my trouser pocket. When I dug out the coin from my pocket and showed it to mama, my father suddenly blew up and gave me a few spankings on my bottom and said "give the money back!" [my mother later explained that to me so I would understand]. She told me the following about what happened. After the spanking I threw the coin on the floor with the words "damn you, because of you I get this hiding", and everybody had to laugh because of those words and my father said to me "allright for this time you may have that dollar, but never again accept money, do you understand" upon which I incredulously started looking for that coin saying " where is the dollar, where is the dollar!"

My sisters and my brother always had to look after me when they played outside. They always had to take me along. For them I was always a bother. At one such occasion they and their friends had taken up the plan to steal leichee from a chinese fruit and vegetables seller.

They left me nicely outside on the pathway where I had to wait until they would come and fetch me again.

And so it happened, as they climbed over the wall around the garden of the chinese merchant to make their killing...

However, they did not know that the Chinese had a watchdog. Suddenly, according to Ecca my eldest sister, the Chinese let loose the dog on them and like lightning they had to make their getaway. In a rush back to the wall, they had to try and get over it. My brother Dolf, the youngest and smallest of the gang, couldn't keep up with them and yelled for help. In fear he grabbed a pruning knife that lay on the ground and waved it around towards the dog approaching him and grabbed his pants. He was very lucky as, while swaying the pruning knife, he cut the end of the dog's tail who let go of him and ran away yelping.

Just in time he was helped over the wall by his friends, because the chinese man was running towards them. So they could get away just in time, but they forgot to take me along. To make matters worse, suddenly the chinese man suddenly came and saw me sitting on the grass. He grabbed hold of me and started using his knuckles on my head. Me, knot knowing anything, but feeling the pain of course started to yell out. Meanwhile my sisters and their friends had come back to fetch me. When they saw the chinese man knuckling me they grabbed sticks from the fence and all together came towards him. He let go off me and made off. My sisters comforted me with sweets and kind words and I had to promise not to tell anything to mama.

On my way home I was happy and had forgotten the whole affair. But when we came home and I saw my mother, I started crying pitifully and yelled "pain, pain oooooh" and started to rehash the whole story.

My mother told me this story later when I was bigger, she said she never told my father about it, because then there would have been hell to pay. The children had to be protected from the "spankings" of my father, because he had no restraint.

We were always happy when my father had to travel for his work. Because then it was delightfully peaceful in the house. We were very afraid of our father. Because when he started beating, he never knew when to stop. He was always hot tempered when he gave a beating.

It also happened more than once that my father would rent a boat at his own expense to take his German friends to Macao to gamble, where they had a lot to drink. And when he came home drunk, then all hell would break loose. Sometimes, for no reason at all, he would hit my mother black and blue. She would have a hard time then. Oh, my father was a sadist.

In the winter months, when he was also home, he would play games with the children. We would always play cards. We would play twenty-one, with money that he would distribute among my brother and sisters. My mother and I would look on. My sister Ecca was very crafty and could juggle the cards very well and she could cheat. She always won and my father found that suspicious. One time, when he caught her cheating he lashed out at her and smacked her in the face; she stood up indignantly and said impudently "how dare you! I didn't cheat, damn it!" She looked straight into his eyes without fear, even without blinking her eyes. It seemed that my father was afraid of Ecca, because he then would not pursue the matter and further kept quiet. Yes, Ecca could lie without batting an eyelid and you would believe her too! She was a champion at it. She was not afraid of anyone. Even the boys that she went around with had a great respect for her, because she would even win from them fighting!

My mother, who always fought with my father, one day received such a trashing again from my father, but she did not leave it at that. She brought the police in and my father got a warning.

To make up again, my mother was smothered with presents and the children were not forgotten either.

The war (1914-1918) was still going on, the Germans were interned and my father, due to his friendships with the Germans, was on a list of suspects.

One time, when my father again lashed out at the children and my mother, she took the case to the High Commissioner of the English Crown in Hongkong and my father was deported from the Hongkong crown colony.

He went to Borneo (today's Kalimantan), where he started work as a mining engineer in the goldmines in Martapura. We did not contact him anymore.

We were allowed to stay in Hongkong and my mother was provisionally divorced from my father.

How immensely happy were we. Yes, we were really "happy". What a peace and quiet there was in the house! Fortunately mama had always put aside money and we could temporarily live on and my two sisters, with the help of the English authorities, found work. Lotty got an office job at the Docking company in Kowloon and Ecca (15 years old) became an assistant to a dentist in Hongkong. So we could go on living. Meanwhile I had become 6 years old and every day Lotty would drop me off at the French convent school on her bike, where they furthered my knowledge of the English language. In the afternoon Lotty would come and pick me up when she came back from the office, and gave me a ride home.

My brother went to the English College in Hongkong and had to go up and down with the ferry every day.

Heading for a new life.

When the war was over my mother decided to go back to her motherland Indonesia (the old Dutch East-Indies).

Meanwhile she had contacted family on Java and received news that we were welcome there.

So we left by boat for Singapore to Batavia, heading for a new future.

Louis Weintre, a cousin of my mother's, fetched us from the harbour and took us to Cheribon (today Cirebon).

Uncle Weintre was Agent for the K.P.M. (Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij - Royal Dutch Packet Lines) in Cheribon and lived in a big K.P.M. house with the office in the front of the building.

My mother did the housekeeping for uncle Weintre, a bachelor, who was very happy with mama's help. He was very nice to us, even though he did not interfere much with us. Lotty got a job at the K.P.M. office as a cashier.

Ecca went to work at Geo Wehry; Dolf went to a boarding school in Bandoeng, where he visited the Mulo-school and I, meanwhile 9 years old, went to the primary school in Cheribon, where I was placed in the 2nd grade. There I learned the Dutch language for the first time. I therefore had to switch from English to Dutch language.My teacher in the 2nd grade was a very sweet stout woman who was especially nice to me. Perhaps it was because I only spoke English and learned Dutch from her. I remember well that, when I had to stay on after classes for extra lessons, she would often, when we were alone in the classroom, press me against her big bossom (while laughing). I thought I would suffocate and didn't know which way to go. Sometimes she would kiss me vehemently and I did not like that at all. But what can you do? When I would leave the classroom after the lessons were over, my friends would sit there and wait for me and wanted to know exactly what had happened. Yes, I found that very strange. I was 9 years old then.

At school all the boys wanted to be friends with me. In their eyes I was something special because I only spoke English. They seemed to find that interesting.

Later on I befriended 2 boys at school, Jules Kommer and Demetri. The three of us dared to take on any other boy in our class and believe me, they had a holy respect for us. One day I had words with a boy, Jopie Remmers. It was like this. On the playground at school we bumped against each other while passing, and Jopie said "ga opzij of ik sla je op je smoel (go away or I'll blast you on your face)". I then said "Wat jij! (What do you want!)" and at the same time we started beating each other with our fists. Jopie, a big boy, bigger than I, immediately started bashing at me. I tried to get him to the ground, which cost me a lot of lost efforts but finally I got him in a "piting" grip (neck hold) and he fell backwards and I sat on top of him and started bashing. The school head, meanwhile, came and seperated us and gave us both punishment, we had to stay on after school. But of course that was not the deal, because between the 2nd and the 3rd grade they had agreed that the fight had to be continued. And so it happened that the next day, after school time, on the grounds behind the school, Jopie and I had to continue our fight. With ample advice from my friend Jules Kommer, I had to fight such and so to win from Jopie.

Surrounded by pupils from the 2nd and 3rd grade we started hitting at each other again with our fists. The fight lasted long and neither of us wanted to give in.

We were tired and could hardly stand on our legs, but we did not give up. In the end the spectators put a stop to the fight by pulling us from each other.... Result, fight undecided, and we had to give each other a hand. From that moment on we were heroes and Jopie and I became the greatest of friends.

__ Until here, my father's story. This story was not completed.
__ My father, who wrote this, passed away on 23rd December 2003.