Reinier Hulsker

The photograph to the right, taken circa 1940, was included in a previous blog concerning the war years and Jan de Jong. De Jong is the person on the left. A person researching jujutsu in Holland suggested the person on the right is Reinier Hulsker. This has now been confirmed by Reinier Hulsker's grand nephew.

An unexpected and unanticipated result of publishing the Jan de Jong story on my blog has been the connection with various people from his past. Before De Jong pasted away he gave me a list of his contacts. I corresponded with some of them and one of them gave me these old photographs of De Jong as a boy scout when he was a young boy in Indonesia. Very Jungle Book because they are actually shot in the jungles of Indonesia.

Of course I can never express the delight and appreciation I felt when Harry Hartman contacted me after seeing a photograph of himself training with De Jong in the early 1950s. He so generously sent me photographs from those times, along with badges which were the belts then. And of course, the membership cards that told me so much.

And now Reinier Hulsker's grand nephew. Wow! Apparently his grand mother, Hulsker's sister, remembers the clothing that Huslker is wearing in the photograph. His grand nephew has so generously offered to interpret and ask any question I have of his grandmother. So now I'm interested in finding out more about Hulsker.

Can you imagine. If there is still a Hulsker school of some description. And I got to train with them - 70 years after De Jong first taught for Hulsker. What a connection. What a link with the history of the school of Jan de Jong.

Stay tuned.