The unveiling of the bronze statue of Pastoor H. C. Verbraak at Bandoeng on 27 January 1922 was the principal public commemoration of the soldatenpastoor of Atjeh — a bronze statue (bronzen standbeeld) raised by subscription after Verbraak’s 1918 death at Magelang and unveiled in the colonial city of Bandoeng with a commemorative address (gedenkrede) by Generaal Dijkstra and a vote of thanks by the Very Reverend Pater van Hoof on behalf of the Bishop and the clergy. The ceremony, fixed in the documentary record by the mission jubilee volume of 1934, is the most visible single monument to the Catholic military chaplaincy of the Atjeh-oorlog.
The earlier Kotta-Radja bust (1908)
The 1922 bronze statue at Bandoeng was not the first public monument raised to Verbraak. The mission jubilee volume records that in 1908 — the year of Verbraak’s departure from Atjeh — a borstbeeld (bust) was raised to him at Kotta-Radja by the garrison he had served for thirty-four years. The Kotta-Radja bust was the first public monument to the chaplain, raised at the site of his ministry by the soldiers and officers who had known him personally. The Bandoeng bronze statue of 1922 was thus the second, more monumental, commemoration — raised after his death, in the colonial city rather than at the site of his ministry.
The 27 January 1922 ceremony
The mission jubilee volume records the 1922 ceremony in a single compressed sentence:
“Later, op 27 Jan. 1922, werd te Bandoeng ter zijner eere een bronzen standbeeld onthuld, waarbij Generaal Dijkstra een gedenkrede uitsprak en den HoogEerw. Pater van Hoof namens den Bisschop en de geestelijkheid zijn dank betuigde.”
The record fixes three facts of the ceremony:
- The date and place: 27 January 1922 at Bandoeng — the colonial city of the Preanger Highlands, by 1922 the rising administrative centre of the Netherlands East Indies.
- The orator: Generaal Dijkstra — a senior Dutch colonial general officer, presumably with personal knowledge of the Atjeh-oorlog, who delivered the commemorative address (gedenkrede).
- The ecclesiastical response: the Very Reverend Pater van Hoof — on behalf of the Bishop and the clergy — expressed the thanks of the church.
The presence of a general as the orator at a clerical-statuary ceremony is itself a document of the institutional bond between the colonial army and the memory of its wartime chaplain — a bond that the foundation of the Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting in the same period was also intended to formalise. The Bandoeng statue, raised in bronze — the monumental medium — and unveiled with a military oration, was thus the most visible single monument to the Catholic military chaplaincy of the Atjeh war-footing.
Significance
The unveiling of the Verbraak bronze statue at Bandoeng on 27 January 1922 is significant for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history on three counts. First, it is the most visible single public monument to the Catholic military chaplaincy of the Atjeh-oorlog — a bronze statue raised in the colonial city, with a military oration and an ecclesiastical vote of thanks. Second, it is the principal formally recorded military speech in honour of Verbraak — the Dijkstra gedenkrede — and therefore the principal official military testimony to the chaplain’s place in the institutional memory of the colonial army. Third, it is the document, in the colonial memory, of the institutional bond between the colonial army and the Catholic church — a bond formalised in the same period by the foundation of the Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting, to which the existing military homes were transferred. The Bandoeng statue, together with the earlier Kotta-Radja bust of 1908, constitutes the documentary monument-fleet of the Catholic chaplaincy of Atjeh.
See Also
- Aceh War
- Bandoeng
- Catholic Mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh
- Generaal Dijkstra
- Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger
- Koeta Radja
- Magelang
- Pastoor H. C. Verbraak
- Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting
- Pater van Hoof
- Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch Indië (1934)
- 1908
- 1918
- 1922
- 27 January
Source
Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch-Indië, 1593–1934 (Batavia: Algemeen Comité van Voorbereiding tot de Feestelijke Herdenking van 400 jaar Missie in Ned.-Indië, [1934]), p. 133, after S. Kalff, “Een trits Indische Pastoors,” in Koloniaal Missie Tijdschrift, Jaargang XII.