Read our stories

Hanny van Roekel was an outstanding import who worked in a variety of positions in New Zealand. She was a champion of immigrants and fought for the rights of naturalised New Zealanders who had surrendered their original citizenship in exchange for a New Zealand passport. Read more about Hanny van Roekel

A Dutch immigrant who made a big contribution to New Zealand. Minnie was awarded the MBE in 1946; the Coronation Medal in 1953; and the Order of Merit of the International Union of Child Welfare in 1967. In 1947, aged 70, she founded the first New Zealand branch of Save the Children Fund in Christchurch. Read more about Minnie Havelaar

This is a story written by a loving Opa for his grand-daughter about his experiences as a child living through WWII in the village of Hees in the Netherlands, and coming to New Zealand in January 1958. Read more about Nicolaas Lambrechtsen

Cycling is in his DNA, and he was rewarded for his dedication to the sport with a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics. Read more about Simon van Velthooven

Everyone may have interesting relatives that have gone before us, but in Tone's case they took notes... Tone was fascinated by the story left behind by one of his forebears, which was retyped from the original by his aunt many years ago. While on sabbatical, he took the opportunity to translate it into English and now his famous relative's story is a book.
Read more about Tone Borren

A Dutch New Zealander pays tribute to a New Zealander who saved many Dutch lives during the Second World War. Read more about Warrant Officer William Cain

The Foundation sponsored book, "Tasman's Legacy", by Hank Schouten, focuses on the achievements of the Dutch in New Zealand from Abel Tasman through to the 1990s. The book is now out of print - so we've provided it for you as a series of downloadable PDFs by chapter. Read more about Tasman's Legacy

As part of the Foundation's commitment to meeting its objective of recognising and sharing the contribution the Dutch have made to New Zealand, copies of the book were provided free to all secondary schools. You can download the whole book as a single PDF on this page. Read more about Tasman's Legacy

We undertook a competition among secondary students asking them to tell us about their, or someone in their family's, experience of coming to New Zealand. The 10 most meritorious essays have been published in a book called "A New Land". Read more about A New Land