Kiky (pseudonym) contacted me after reading one of my writings about a victim of the 1965 genocide on Facebook. She introduced herself as a victim's granddaughter, and would like to share her story as long as I write it using pseudonyms. ‘Please ask me any question, and I will try to answer or ask my mother if I don't know’, she wrote.

As I set up the ‘1965 Family’ group for the survivors of 1965 as well as the relatives of the victims to share their experiences, I invited Kiky to join. But Kiky said that she was not yet ready to open up to other people. As an Indonesian of Chinese descent, Kiky felt the pressure and threats were greater. She also felt in awe of my project and that people were willing to reveal their stories using their real names and identities. For her and her family, this was unimaginable.

My grandfather, kung-kung, was gone long before I was born. I just heard that kung-kung died around the mid-1960s. Only when I was in high school, mama told me a little bit about him. She said it in a whisper, although we were at home then, but she was still afraid that someone would hear us. She also made me promise not to tell anyone else, as she was about to reveal the biggest secret of the family.

Mama decided to uncover this secret only because of her fear that my koko, who had started to become interested in various organisations, would meet the same fate as kung-kung did. My grandfather and my grandmother, pho-pho, lived on Bangka, a small island to the east of Sumatra. They had eight children, seven daughters and the eldest child was the only son. My mother was the fourth.

Kung-kung was active in both the PKI and a labour union. Mama said that kung-kung had quite important positions in both the PKI as well as the union. Organisational meetings were usually run at the home of kung-kung and pho-pho. When the G30S took place in Jakarta, there was no unusual activity whatsoever in the family house on Bangka. Everyone stayed at home, except for mama's eldest brother, who was in Jakarta because he was studying there.