At over 90 years old, Carmel Budiardjo’s health had deteriorated. She had been using walking aids and had limited mobility. Of course, this is common and to be expected of most people at that age.

However, her spirit remained different. Not many people over 90 could be actively involved in human rights campaigns in regions far away from home.

But Carmel, who was born as Carmel Brickman in 1925 to a Jewish family in East London – the very area where I live now – was not always interested in Indonesia and its surrounding countries. As a child, she even took part in celebrating Empire Day at school and was not aware that the day commemorated British colonialism in many other regions. To most of these colonized peoples, the British Empire meant poverty and suffering and was definitely not to be celebrated.

It was her encounter with people from various countries when she was a student at the London School of Economics (LSE) that made her aware of the plights of other countries, especially of colonized ones. Her Jewish background and experience of anti-Semitism had made her sensitive to the oppressed and victims of injustice and racism.

The growth of this awareness prompted Carmel to join the International Union of Students (IUS) – an organization that promoted global equality – which gave her an opportunity to meet people from and in different parts of the world.

It was also through her activism in the IUS that she met Budiardjo in Prague in 1948, while he was studying political science at Charles University. They got married in 1950. This was a rather brave decision by both, as Carmel had a Jewish background and Budiardjo a Muslim one. Yet Carmel made another brave decision, which was very unusual for women in her era: moving to Indonesia to follow her husband. 

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