Heidi and Emily Langerak never knew their Aunt Germa. Heidi was born on the day that Germa van den Boom from Nieuwendijk went missing. Emily wasn’t born then. Yet their aunt’s missing has marked their lives. As an ultimate attempt to clear it up, Emily has written a personal letter to the perpetrator behind the disappearance: “I forgive you for keeping silent if you tell me where she is.”
The young woman (19) disappeared in 1984 after a night out in Gorinchem. The group she was with visited the discotheques Meddox and Carrousel.
While going out, Germa ran into a boy next door. He dropped her off that Saturday night around two o’clock in front of the entrance of her parental home in Nieuwendijk. On Monday she was supposed to start her holiday job in a retirement home in Werkendam, but she never showed up.
The Peter R. de Vries Foundation is offering a reward of 250,000 euros for the golden tip that leads to the recovery of Germa. This promotion ends on April 20. In the talk show KRAAK of Omroep Brabant, the sisters once again made an emotional appeal to the unknown perpetrator: “Tell us where Germa has gone.”
So far, 250 tips about their aunt’s missing have been received. However, the golden tip is not there yet. The perpetrator does not need punishment, Emily emphasizes. “We just want to know what happened to Germa and where her body is now. In 2016 our grandfather, Germa’s father, passed away. I then promised him that we will keep trying to find her. We will continue to shake that tree and fight for her homecoming.”
Forgiving the offender is difficult. “But I sincerely want to do this. But the perpetrator has to talk now,” says the emotional Emily who wrote a letter to the perpetrator, which she also read in KRAAK.
Read Emily’s letter below:
To you,
Monday morning, July 30, 1984, my grandfather has to make the most difficult telephone call of his life. He has to tell the police that he cannot find his daughter Germa anywhere. A true nightmare for any parent. This terrible nightmare has been going on for 38 years. All the while no answers to the questions we have. While those answers must be there!
The despair, anger and sadness, it has marked us for life. And why? What happened or did not happen that Germa’s life has been a question mark for a long time? Why has she been silenced forever?
Who or what gave you the right to remain silent for so long?
The silence is maddening and for a long time I have been so angry. Not being able to pronounce the word ‘forgiveness’. But now I want to do that. I forgive your silence when you tell her where she is. I forgive your environment, your family if they knew more about all this. I will forgive you as soon as I can tell my children that Germa is one of the brightest stars in the sky.
Please tell us where she is and I will speak the words of forgiveness when I greet Germa for the first and last time.
Goodbye dear Germa, you are finally home.
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