The Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting (“Pastoor Verbraak Foundation”) was a Dutch colonial Catholic welfare foundation named in honour of Pastoor H. C. Verbraak, the soldatenpastoor of Atjeh, to which the existing military homes (militaire tehuizen) of the Netherlands East Indies were transferred in the early 1920s — and which were thereafter “increased and improved” (vermeerderd en verbeterd) under the foundation’s administration. The foundation is documented in the mission jubilee volume of 1934 in the chapter on the institutional achievements of Mgr. A. P. F. van Velsen’s vicariate, alongside the foundation of the Central Mission Bureau, the annual Indian Mission Almanac, and the preservation of the Catholic daily De Koerier.
Foundation and transfer of the military homes
The mission jubilee volume records the foundation in the chapter on the institutional achievements of the vicariate of Mgr. A. P. F. van Velsen (vicar 1924–1933):
“de bestaande militaire tehuizen werden overgedragen aan de in het leven geroepen Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting en daarna vermeerderd en verbeterd.”
The transfer of the existing military homes to the newly-created Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting — and the subsequent expansion and improvement of those homes under the foundation’s administration — is the documentary fact that fixes the foundation in the institutional record of the colonial Catholic church. The naming of the foundation after Verbraak — who had died at Magelang in 1918 and whose bronze statue had been unveiled at Bandoeng on 27 January 1922 — is the document of the institutional memory of the soldatenpastoor in the post-war colonial church, and of the formalisation of that memory in a welfare foundation.
Function
The Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting’s function was the administration and expansion of the military homes — the welfare institutions that provided lodging, refreshment, and moral support to the Catholic soldiers of the Netherlands-Indian Army. The military homes were the institutional continuation, in peacetime, of the wartime chaplaincy that Verbraak had exercised on the Atjeh war-footing: the same care for the “Jan Fuselier” — the ordinary Dutch soldier — that had been Verbraak’s personal ministry was now, through the foundation named after him, institutionalised across the colonial army.
Significance
The Pastoor Verbraak-Stichting is significant for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history on two counts. First, it is the principal institutional memorial of Pastoor H. C. Verbraak — the foundation named after him, and the formal vehicle by which his ministry to the colonial soldier was perpetuated in the post-war colonial army. Second, its foundation in the early 1920s — alongside the bronze statue at Bandoeng of 27 January 1922 — is the documentary witness of the institutional consolidation of the memory of the Atjeh chaplaincy in the post-war colonial church, and of the formalisation of that memory in a welfare foundation that administered and expanded the military homes of the K.N.I.L. The foundation thus bridges the wartime chaplaincy of the Atjeh-oorlog and the peacetime military welfare of the late colonial army.
See Also
- A. P. F. van Velsen
- Aceh War
- Bandoeng
- Catholic Mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh
- Generaal Dijkstra
- Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger
- Pastoor H. C. Verbraak
- Pater van Hoof
- Unveiling of the Verbraak bronze statue (27 January 1922)
- Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch Indië (1934)
- 1918
- 1922
- 1924
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. 62 (chapter on the achievements of Mgr. van Velsen’s vicariate).