Shika Holtzem

Maria, Not Nadra

It is December 12th, 1950, and 13-year-old Maria Bertha Hertogh has alighted from an aeroplane flown from Singapore to Amsterdam with a woman named Adeline who claims to be her mother. There, she is greeted by a man who claims to be her father, who embraces the two women, as well as crowds of White Dutch people who celebrate her return. They cheer as the reunited family enter their car and drive to their home amidst the crowds, rejoicing the rescue of their own kin from Oriental heathenry back to European civilization. But little do they know that in Maria’s sad eyes, there is homesickness. She does not smile, for deep down she knows she does not belong to the cold skies of the Netherlands, but rather the warm, tropic summers of Southeast Asia. And her name, really, is Nadra.