An outsider, that’s how Hetty Naaijkens-rhetel Helmrich from Goirle felt in our country. She is an Indian Dutchman, its origin lies in the former Dutch East Indies colony. That is all a long time ago and many people know little about it anymore. But Hetty is a filmmaker and that is why she made a documentary about it: “It is very annoying to always be outside the group. While we are originally from here.”
Hetty is actually a teacher. She gave Dutch and social studies in Tilburg and in Curaçao. Only later did she make films. And she became very successful with it. A full wall with prices and certificates in her office testifies to this. For example for ‘sounds of origin’, about Indian musicians: Anneke Grönloh, the Blue Diamonds, Ernst Jansz and Sandra Reemer. The film attracted ten thousand visitors to the cinema.
‘Incredibly important’, Hetty thinks her films draw high visitor numbers: “I have a message and I think it is important that it arrives in people.”
Hetty did not learn anything about her history at school: “It was completely removed from the schoolbooks. My Tilburg teacher of the sixth grade is still alive and lives here a few streets further. He told me that he would have liked to teach me this too. But he didn’t know. He sees it through my films.”
The documentary that now comes to the cinema, Anak India, is her fourth about the Dutch East Indies. “It is very important to finally tell who we are. We are Indian Dutch people. We are not Indonesians. We lived in a country that was occupied by the Dutch for 350 years.”
In the film you see the influence that Indos have had on Dutch culture. Such as with Nijmegen Four Days Marches. He has its origins in the KNIL: the Royal Dutch Indian Army. The music, martial arts and also fighting flying comes in the picture: two kites that compete with each other.
“The Moluccans did not want to tell it, thought it was a thing of the past.”
Hetty also highlights the dark sides of history in the film. Such as the frustration of Moluccans, who fight for their own state and were abandoned by the Netherlands. But the actions of young Moluccans in the 1970s, the train hijacking and the hostage -taking at a primary school, she does not say: “Of course that is not at all good talking. It is also a black page for them. But the Moluccans did not want to tell it, they thought it was a thing of the past.” It is also a subject that does not belong in this film, says Hetty: “Because this film is about heritage. What happened from there. And the Moluccan problem happened in the Netherlands.”
Hetty shows plenty of old film images that her father has made. So she can also be seen: “You see me eat herring. And fries. The food was completely different. I had to adjust. You see me making trips. There was a man in Tilburg, Mr. Rath, who arranged that for Indian Dutch people. To Madurodam or the caves of Han, to get to know the country and Europe. Many people recognize in it.”
Waiting for privacy settings …
It is her most personal film so far. “Actually, the people I portray in the film are a kind of mouthpiece of myself. But of course it is also their story.” She lets Sjors van der Panne sing a song that perfectly expresses her feeling: “The tear that is not alone for me.” When she tells about it, she will be full. “That tear applies to everyone. I am looking for recognition from the Dutch Dutch, that this Indian community belongs to them. And that they are driven out of their country because they were Dutch. It is something that the Dutch still don’t understand.”
On Friday, June 20, the premiere of ‘Anak India’, from 26 June the documentary in the cinema can be seen.
