Daan van Citters

A young Dutch soldier deployed to suppress post-WWII independence efforts in the Netherlands’ colony of Indonesia finds himself torn between duty and conscience when he joins an increasingly ruthless commander’s elite squad.

Daan van Citters and Joenoes Polnaija retrace the footsteps of their grandfathers in Indonesia. They both fought for the Netherlands against Indonesian independence: Daan’s grandfather went voluntarily from the Netherlands, Joenoes’s as a Moluccan soldier in the Dutch colonial army, KNIL. Their poignant journey forces them to ask themselves some difficult questions about guilt, shame and transgenerational transmission.

Daan van Citters and Joenoes Polnaija retrace the footsteps of their grandfathers in Indonesia. They both fought for the Netherlands against Indonesian independence: Daan’s grandfather went voluntarily from the Netherlands, Joenoes’s as a Moluccan soldier in the Dutch colonial army, KNIL. Their poignant journey forces them to ask themselves some difficult questions about guilt, shame and transgenerational transmission.