Pah Wongso

Pah Wongso
Pah Wongso in 1938, while raising funds to help China
Born	Louis Victor Wijnhamer (1904-02-11)11 February 1904 Tegal, Dutch East Indies
Died	13 May 1975(1975-05-13) (aged 71) Jakarta, Indonesia
Nationality	Indonesian
Occupation	Social worker

Louis Victor Wijnhamer (11 February 1904 – 13 May 1975), better known as Pah Wongso (Chinese: 伯王梭; pinyin: Bó Wángsuō), was an Indo social worker popular within the ethnic Chinese community of what was initially the Dutch East Indies, and subsequently became Indonesia. Educated in Semarang and Surabaya, Pah Wongso began his social work in the early 1930s, using traditional arts such as wayang golek to promote such causes as monogamy and abstinence. By 1938 he had established a school for the poor, and was raising money for the Red Cross to send aid to China.

In late 1938, Pah Wongso used a legal defense fund, which had been raised for him when he was charged with extortion, in order to establish another school; this was followed by an employment center in 1939. In 1941, Star Film released two productions starring him and featuring his name in the title. During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, Pah Wongso was held in a series of concentration camps in South-East Asia. He returned to the then-independent Indies by 1948, and raised funds for the Red Cross and ran an employment office until his death.

Louis Victor Wijnhamer was born on 11 February 1904 in Tegal, Central Java, in the Dutch East Indies. One of three siblings, Wijnhamer was born to an ethnic Dutch administrator from Surabaya, Louis Gregorius Wijnhamer and J. F. Ihnen; he was of Indo descent. He studied at the senior high school in Semarang, before spending some time at the Suikerschool in Surabaya, later arriving in Batavia (now Jakarta). There, between 1927 and 1937, he worked as an amanuensis at the School tot Opleiding van Inlandsche Artsen.