In September 2013, I visited the house of Antonius Pudji Rahardjo in Surabaya with a friend, Djuir, who had known Pudji for several years. He took me on his motorbike there, because he said even if he gave me his address, it would be hard to find his house. He was right. We had to go via countless alleys before we arrived at a house with many plants outside. We had not told Antonius Pudji Rahardjo that we were coming. We just knocked on his door.

Pudji emerged from the house in his sarong and greeted us very warmly. I introduced myself, told him about my father, and my intention of writing his memoir. During our third meeting, he showed me his small library behind his house. The library was full of rare books, as well as his writings and newspaper clippings. A small yet very impressive library.

I was actually born on 7 September 1929 but on my documents, the date is 7 September 1932. Before Gestok, I used to be a teacher at Pondok Takeran in Madiun [East Java]. The school belonged to Sarekat Islam. Later, I found a job at BAT [British American Tobacco] in Surabaya. BAT was a huge corporation, which ran several cigarette and insurance companies and had plantations everywhere. First, I became an assistant accountant and, subsequently, I was appointed as head of accounting. After getting this post, I also became a trade union activist and, soon after, the nationalisation of foreign companies in Indonesia began. In 1964, I was given a mandate by Oei Tjoe Tat [a state minister under Sukarno] to nationalise BAT with the help of the military and labour representatives.

Moments before Gestok 1965

On 27 September 1965, I left for Jakarta to attend a national meeting of union leaders, to discuss the problem of workers’ social security. The meeting started on 28 September. On 30 September, I was still in Jakarta and at approximately 11:30 pm that day, I walked passed Menteng and saw many armoured vehicles. At that time, I thought they were preparing for the celebration of the Armed Forces Day on 5 October.