I had known Rito Aji via Facebook for about three years, before he told me that his father had been imprisoned on Buru Island. Like many children of ex-prisoners who were born after their parents’ arrest occurred, Rito has a huge desire to find out more, to get a clear sense of what happened and to uncover the truth about his family's history.

When bapak was arrested in late 1965, I was still in my mother's womb, about two months along. I am the youngest of five siblings, the only boy. One of my uncles was also being hunted by the army at the time. He was a law student at Airlangga University, but could not finish his studies because he was on the run. Once, when he was hiding in our house, the police surrounded the place. My uncle managed to escape through the sewers. He has since changed his identity and become a Hajj (a religious devotee who has journeyed to Mecca).

Bapak had a good job at a big company, so without bapak, ibu had to struggle to feed the children. She used to be a teacher and lost her job, so she had to do whatever she could to make money, like selling food at the market. It was really hard for ibu, because on my father's side, there were many victims, but on my mother's side, there were many mass murderers. I was in my mother's belly for almost eleven months and weighed less than 2 kg when I was born. The soles of my feet were cracked, a sign of malnutrition.

My family did not need to tell me about bapak. From when I was young, I knew that my family was implicated in the PKI, because the neighbours liked calling me names. We lived in a kampong in Surabaya, predominantly Javanese, with some Arabic, Indian and Chinese mixed in.

Little kids there often said that I was a son of PKI who had no religion and was like an animal. Because bapak was jailed, our family's finances were falling apart. So we could not afford to buy a TV. The kampong children who did not have TV usually went to the house of a neighbour, who was a teacher. But I was not allowed in by him. If I tried to see the TV from the outside he would chase me away.