Povl Winning Toussieng


Povl Winning Toussieng was a Danish doctor, author and resistance fighter.

Background and education

Povl Winning Toussieng was son of colonel Heinrich Elfred Theodor Toussieng and Regina Frederikke Winning. Povl Winning Toussieng attended Rungsted Boarding School in Rungsted, Denmark. He went on to study medicine at the University of Copenhagen. After having graduated in 1917, he became a general practitioner in Nysted, Denmark.
Toussieng married Ingeborg Marie Amalie Hansen, and they had two children: Povl Winning Toussieng Junior who became a child psychiatrist in Oklahoma City and Agnete Toussieng.

Stationing in the [Dutch East Indies]

Toussieng met Queen Juliana of the Netherlands at the Dutch embassy in Copenhagen, and she encouraged him to go to the Dutch East Indies. Toussieng left Denmark for the Dutch East Indies in 1922 on a three-year contract with the Dutch Government. He was stationed in Borneo from 1922 to 1925, whereafter Toussieng continued working as a GP in the eastern part of Java - in Malang until 1937. While he worked as a GP he also worked as a doctor for the Pasoeroean sugartesting station.

Travelogues

In 1937 Toussieng returned to Denmark, and became a GP in Charlottenlund in 1938.
He wrote two books about his experiences in the jungles of the Dutch East Indies:
Mahakam: Den store flod and Mahakam, ovenfor Faldene. Both books were published in 1941.

Collection of cultural objects

Toussieng was given a large number of masks, swords, spears and cultural objects from his grateful patients in the Dutch East Indies. Toussiengs descendants have donated a large number of these objects to the National Museum of Denmark. One of the objects - a mask - has since been portrayed on a Danish stamp.

Resistance fight

Toussieng was active in 1st Company of the Danish Home Guard, and he hid resistance fighters during the German occupation of Denmark during the second world war. Toussieng was together with his son arrested on 2 December 1944. They were questioned and interned for a periode of time before they were released.
Toussieng also worked to improve the conditions of refugees from the Netherlands, and after the war, he was awarded the Dutch Red Cross medal and appointed an officer of the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau.