Joty ter Kulve

Biography

In fact Joty ter Kulve is ‘the founding mother’ of the Indonesia Nederland Society. Twenty years ago Joty, together with her brother Willem van Os, who alas passed away, started the endeavour to transform the house of their youth in Linggarjati (formerly spelled as Linggadjati) into a Lieu de Mémoire because it was there that in 1946 in a sphere of mutual respect the ‘Linggadjati Agreement’ was negotiated. During these days of deliberation the conditions were laid for reconciliation, friendship and future cooperation between the Netherlands and Indonesia in the long term. Thanks to the accomplishment of the siblings Joty and Wim, this house and its lush gardens, once built by their father Koos van Os, now is a national museum of Indonesia that is broadly visited by both Indonesians and Dutch. By designating the house in which the negotiations once took place into a national monument, the Indonesian government honoured the diplomatic efforts of their founding fathers Soekarno, Hatta and Sjahrir as well as the Dutch diplomats to achieve Independence for Indonesia. Joty and her brother established the Foundation ‘Friends of Linggadjati’ early this century that later on developed into the Indonesia Nederland Society as we know it today. Joty ter Kulve still contributes strongly to the mission of INS. Recently she was the initiator of the project Planting Three Freedom Trees to celebrate 75 Years of Freedom for respectively Nederland, Indonesia and the United Nations on 23 September 2021 at Estate The Paauw in Wassenaar.