In 2018 Museum Multatuli in Rangkasbitung Lebak opened its doors. Multatuli, the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker, became famous for his 1860 novel Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, which was based on Dekker’s experience as a colonial official of trying to advocate for improved conditions for local people. I ask what is new or original about this museum. I focus on the museum’s attention to the structures of colonial rule including local complicity in colonialism as well as the unusual choice to commemorate a Dutch man, which goes against the nationalist trope in history writing of pitting colonisers against the colonised. By reflecting on the museum curators as key memory activists I ask why the museum was created at this time and what it tells us about memories of colonialism and connections to other more recent periods of repression in Indonesia.