WHAT IFS

Doc,

It's too long to answer your what ifs in my comment column. So, I opt to post it here.

Whatever your questions are, they never have happened and they were already destined to happen so... BUT for SURE their pains were enormous!

After 8 years? She must have been in low profile indeed. Otherwise, they would have spotted her much earlier. How to hide her? She was obviously "a white girl" and was the talk of the town that later created history in so many countries until today... as I am writing this post. I am deeply saddened by her episodes in life... I am eagerly waiting for The Movie to come.

BUT the unfair parts were...

**NO one knew their true feelings and sufferings, when she and her "foster mother" were torn apart, snatched off their sacred love and faith in each other, separated, leaving four empty arms...helplessly screaming their hearts out "in silent", immensely torturing and unbearable...

**Strongly she went on with her life and throughout she was suffering ... Silently suffering. I believed so!

But since everyone were so focusing on her, did anyone pause to ponder about her paternal mother?

**Imagine the "LOST" she felt, with her little girl "given" to another person to take care of.

**How did she feel when there were no traces of little girl and her foster mother ... She was also torn apart... shattered, helpless, teary days and nights lasted for so long... separated by the cruel war and the "fate".

**What's left was only her body and soul intact with her but her feelings of hope to see, to hold, to hug, to feed, to love and to nurture her little girl were cruelly sheared away.

**She was for so long, living and endure all the hurts and anguish, while hopelessly hoping to be with her child.

**Fate was on her side... although torn between two mothers must have been extremely painful... she has the rights over her child. Could we imagine how joyous she must have been winning the court case and having her "baby" in her arms again????? and away they flew home to home sweet home.

**But I am sure she thanked Cik Aminah greatly for "saving" Nadra's life from the evil of the war.

We now witnessed their extensive sufferings from these blogs...Three ladies, people with beautiful hearts tragically suffered at the hands of the war... I believe people who posted in their blogs were "immensely touched" by what they write... I DO!

I am eagerly waiting for the movie...

Natrah/Nadra The Movie

Published by seacsub
07-06-2007

Nadra the Movie

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Quote:

Nadra Maria Hertogh has been living in Holland since she left Singapore as a teenager. CANNES: Deadly riots and the tension-filled true story of a teenage girl at the centre of conflict between East and West will soon be reenacted on the big screen in a movie that is to be partly shot in Singapore. Co-produced by Singapore’s Monsoon Pictures Pte Ltd and Dutch film company IdtV, Nadra tells of 13-year-old Dutch girl Bertha (or Maria) Hertogh, aka Nadra binte Maarof, the focus of a 1950 custody battle that became an international political and religious struggle. The two companies signed an agreement on Wednesday on the sidelines of the ongoing Cannes Film Festival to make the US$6.5 million ($10 million) movie, directed by Dutch film-maker Ben Sombogaart and co-produced by Monsoon Pictures managing director Christopher Chew along with IdtV’s Hanneke Niens and Anton Smit. “Beyond being the story of a girl, it’s really a story about clashing cultures — Christian and Muslim — so it’s a very timely and relevant movie,” said Chew at the signing ceremony. “More importantly, it’s about people caught in the middle of a war between governments.” Born in 1937 to a Dutch family in Indonesia, the real-life Hertogh was given up for adoption by her mother during World War II after her father’s capture by the Japanese. Converted to Islam and given the name Nadra by her adoptive Malay mother, she drew attention at a sports meet eight years later and quickly made headlines around the world as “the Dutch girl raised as a Muslim in the jungles of Malaya”. Her birth family’s subsequent battle to reclaim the girl in a Singapore court led to riots that left 18 people dead, around 200 injured and a rift between families and countries that would take decades to repair. Despite the media attention the case drew at the time — and again in 1975 when a Dutch TV show reignited public interest — little was known about Hertogh herself or what had become of the “jungle girl” until the film’s Australian screenwriter, Sarah Lambert, tracked her down while researching the script. “It was weird that with all the people who were looking for Bertha, when I went to Holland I found her within two phone calls,” Lambert said. “Until then, no one had ever really asked her what happened, what she wanted, how she felt.” The subject matter of the film, for which shooting will also be done in Malaysia and the Netherlands starting in the middle of next year, made it the ideal vehicle for the first co-production between Singapore and Holland, Chew said. Not that film-goers should expect Nadra to reopen old wounds. “This isn’t a political film, let’s get that straight,” said Chew. “It’s set at a time when there were religious sensitivities, which there still are. We’re not focusing on politics and religion but at the same time you can’t run away from that.” It may be a tale torn from the history books, but in Lambert’s view Nadra will still resonate with contemporary audiences. “It’s about what happens to real people who get caught up in tense situations,” she said. “When the press leaves, the ramifications of what happened continue.” - additional reporting by Valerie Tan - TODAY/fa

Will anyone be watching this piece of Singapore history when it comes out?

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