Anne-Lot Hoek

Geweld, verzet en koloniale staatsvorming 1846–1950 (The Battle for Bali. Violence, Resistance and Colonial State Formation 1846–1950).

Hoek has lived and worked in Amsterdam, Windhoek and Cape Town.

In 2021 she launched her debut De strijd om Bali.

Imperialisme, verzet en onafhankelijkheid 1846–1950 (De Bezige Bij), for which she had interviewed 128 people involved on Bali and in the Netherlands in addition to extensive archival research.

During her seven years of research she discovered, for example, that the Dutch army built a tangsi-system of 50 prison camps on Bali in which torture and executions were a systematic phenomenon.

Her account shows how the battle for the island should be understood within a long tradition of anti-colonial violence and reveals how after World War II the island, as part of the federal state of East-Indonesia, played a key role in Dutch decolonization policy.

Up until that point the focus of historians had mainly been on Java.

Hoek's book also addresses the more general aspects of the decolonization of the Dutch East Indies.

De strijd om Bali resulted in a set of questions from the House of Representatives in the Netherlands, and articles in Dutch national newspapers like NRC Handelsblad, the Trouw, Nederlands Dagblad and de Volkskrant.

It became national news on television and radio with subsequently RTL Nieuws and NPO Radio 1.

TV channel Omroep West made a special.

She received book reviews in Dutch national newspapers such as NRC Handelsblad and Nederlands Dagblad as well as in history-related media such as Historiek and Historisch Nieuwsblad, and in Belgium in De lage landen ('The Low Countries').

Preview publications appeared in NRC Handelsblad and De Groene Amsterdammer, and she was interviewed in Dutch national and regional newspapers such as Algemeen Dagblad and Den Haag Centraal, and on national radio in Nieuwsweekend, and OVT as she appeared on Buitenhof (TV series).

In addition to interviewing witnesses, she performed research in the Dutch National Archive and discovered a range of previously unknown sources from 1949; a list with the names of 120 'fallen civilians', a statement by the Dutch Resident that the death toll was 400, and an article in a Chinese newspaper referring to more than 1,000 victims.

By comparing these with sources from the Netherlands and Indonesia a new absolute minimal death count of 270 individuals emerged.

The research resulted in two articles for NRC Handelsblad and a radio report, The Rengat Massacre, on NPO Radio 1.

It was subsequently picked up by national media such as Algemeen Dagblad, de Volkskrant, Trouw, the Nederlandse Omroep Stichting and RTL Nieuws.

She also made headlines in NRC Handelsblad with an article about a Swiss dissertation that refuted the excessive violence research from 1969.

In the Netherlands the official death toll since the Excessive Violence nota of 1969 was 80, while in Rengat there was a statue to 1,500 victims with the names of 186.

Anne-Lot Hoek (born 17 June 1978) is a Dutch historian, independent researcher and author.

She writes historical non-fiction, articles and academic publications.

Anne-Lot Hoek was born in The Hague and attended the Adelbert College gymnasium from 1991 to 1997.

Hoek studied History at the University of Amsterdam and Political history at the University of Perugia in Italy.

She obtained her master's degree at the faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam and went on to earn a PhD in 2023 for her dissertation De strijd om Bali.

From 2005 to 2007 Hoek worked at the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASC) and performed research in Bolivia, Zambia, Cameroon and Mali.

In 2012 she again carried out research in Zambia.

At that point she was working as a freelance journalist contributing to Vrij Nederland, and later NRC Handelsblad and De Groene Amsterdammer.

Since 2012 she has written more than 32 articles on Indonesia's colonial past.

In her first article on Indonesia she contributed to the request for rehabilitation for three marines who had refused to set fire to a kampong in reprisal.

A few months later, a motion to this effect was submitted in the House of Representatives.

In 2013, Hoek conducted archival research which revealed for the first time that the Netherlands had committed war crimes in Bali.

She also interviewed several veterans who were willing to confirm these findings.

This was picked up by national and international media outlets, and other authors since.

In 2014, she discovered archive documents showing that the Dutch authorities ran Bali as their private kingdom during the Indonesian War of Independence.

A damning official investigation report into corruption and intimidation in Bali was suppressed, as was the man who wrote it.

In 2015, she stated that historical institutes in the Netherlands had neglected their task for 65 years.

In 2016, Hoek delved deeper into the question of why Dutch historians of the previous generation, such as the head of the excessive violence research Cees Fasseur, had taken an evasive attitude towards the actual violence in Indonesia.

According to two-fold Libris History Prize winner Martin Bossenbroek the article contributed to a paradigm shift, a historiographical regime change.

Since then, Hoek has been seen as one of the persons at the base of a new generation of historians who confront the Netherlands and its politicians with the truth.

Early 2016, Hoek traveled to Indonesia for research in Rengat on Sumatra to investigate an attack on the city in January 1949.