Fri, 07 Apr 2000

City heritage documents missing

JAKARTA (JP): A senior observer of old Jakarta says that the city museum and restoration agency must take responsibility for the whereabouts of the bulk of her studies on city heritage.

Annegret Handojosoemarto, who for 21 years has been involved in archeological excavations and translations of books on old Jakarta, said many of her studies, handed over to the agency years ago, have been reported missing.

"I'm very upset that the papers have not been handled properly. The materials could be precious sources for researchers on city heritage and for young people seeking stories of the past," said the German-born widow of the late senior reporter for Antara, J.A. Soejanarko Handojosoemarto.

Interviewed at her home in North Jakarta's Pluit area, Annegret recalled that she and 13 colleagues conducted research on historical buildings and sites between 1974 and 1995 at the request of the city administration.

The projects included data collection at the Jakarta Historical Museum in West Jakarta and the Maritime Museum in North Jakarta and excavations of archeological sites in Tugu area, Onrust Island and Cipir Island in North Jakarta.

Annegret, now 62, translated numerous books during her career. She translated works by Dutch authors, such as clergyman Francois Valentijn, who wrote six volumes on places in the archipelago visited by VOC (former Dutch trading company) in the 17th century, A. Blonk on Cornelis de Houtman, who led the first Dutch voyage to Indonesia, and Nio Joe Lan on the early Chinese community in Indonesia.

According to Annegret, she was informed by certain people that copies of her studies were missing from the agency. They asked her to help locate the material for use in their business.

The people were told that translations by Annegret are missing and none of the agency's staff know of their whereabouts.

"I was so stupid that I did not keep copies of all the works for myself," she said, showing the few copies she kept.

No one doubts that seeking data on city heritage is a difficult task due to the lack of available material.

Scholars and researchers often have complained about this problem. Some of them even have gone as far as the Netherlands, France, Portugal and other countries to collect information.

When asked to comment on Annegret's remarks, head of the agency's archeology and history division, Candrian Attahiyat admitted the fact and lamented the lack of curiosity among the agency's officials on the importance of such historical records.

"Sometimes data has not been well managed and has even disappeared when officials in charge were transferred to other posts.

Worst, those who replace them seem to have no curiosity about such material," he said in a regretful voice.

Candrian suggested that numerous moves by the agency from one office to another also lead to disappearance of material.

Annegret said that she was too emotional to consider the loss of her works. "I worked very hard and as detailed as possible translating the historical works," she said.

She cited one of her works about the Tugu area, where she found an abundance of data from old inhabitants of Portuguese descent, their traditional keroncong music, and an ancient church.

"I had a complete set of notes of the materials which were written in Malay, Dutch and Portuguese. It's so regrettable that in the end all of them have disappeared," Annegret said.

In completing the work, Annegret and her colleagues had to spend several nights and days on Onrust Island. They even had to travel as far as Central Java to collect reliable data.

Unfortunately, Annegret, a former member of the Ganesha society of foreign women focusing on heritage data collection, said she had no accurate data on the precise number of books that she had produced so far. (ind)