Pada hari ini New Straits Times melaporkan berkaitan
dua orang cucu Natrah iaitu Sasha Van Gastel dan Romy Elizabeth Marian Smol
yang melawat rumah Pn Rokiyah di Kemaman. Lawatan dua anak keturunan dari
Belanda ke rumah beliau itu merupakan klimaks dalam siri lawatan mereka
selama dua minggu ke Malaysia.
Difahamkan kedua cucu Natrah itu melawat atau
merantau ke semenanjung justeru ingin mengetahui lebih banyak lagi berkaitan
latar belakang nenek mereka yang mempunyai hubungan sejarah yang rapat
dengan tanah Melayu.
Natrah (iaitu nama Islamnya) atau Maria Bertha Hertogh
adalah suatu nama yang mengembalikan ingatan kita ke zaman selepas perang
dunia ke dua dahulu yang melibatkan dua nama besar dalam sejarah tanah air
iaitu Allahyarham Kadir Adabi dan juga Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy.
Maria Bertha Hertogh yang dipelihara oleh Che Aminah
bt Mohamed telah memeluk Islam dan berkahwin dengan Mansor Adabi pada masa
beliau berusia 13 tahun. Keputusan mahkamah yang mengembalikan beliau kepada
keluarga asal daripada keluarga Katolik Belanda menimbulkan kemarahan orang
Melayu ketika itu.
Rusuhan telah berlaku pada 11
Disember 1950 akibat keputusan Mahkamah Tinggi dan justeru imej yang
mencalar agama Islam ketika itu. Dr. Burhanuddin Al-Helmy adalah antara
tokoh utama yang telah ditahan oleh British akibat peristiwa Natrah. Dia
dituduh terlibat dalam demonstrasi menentang keputusan Mahkamah Tinggi
Singapura yang membenarkan Natrah (Maria Hertogh) dipulangkan kepada
keluarga asalnya di Belanda.
Kehadiran kedua orang cucu Natrah kali ini
mengembalikan kenangan zaman silam Pn Rokayah yang telah menyambut kedua
mereka dengan gembira dan layanan istimewa.
Sementara bagi kedua orang keturunan Belanda itu,
mereka amat gembira kerana berjaya menjejaki kembali legasi nenenda mereka
yang telah hidup bersama dengan sebuah keluarga Melayu dan meninggalkan
petanda
sejarah dalam tinta sejarah Malaysia.
Malahan kata Van Gastel, seorang pelajar tahun
pertama dalam jurusan reka fesyen, " Ini merupakan pengalaman menyeronokkan
kerana kami disatukan kembali dengan keluarga nenek angkat kami dahulu."
** Dari facebook buku Natrah: Cinta & Perjuangan:
"Kekalnya
BANGSA kerana mulianya AKHLAK, runtuhnya BANGSA kerana runtuhnya AKHLAK"
"Natrah adalah kisah cinta dua insan agung yang menyatu dengan kisah cinta
bangsa melayu kepada agamanya hingga mencetus rusuhan yang tragis di
Singapura pada tahun 1950"
NATRAH ADALAH WANITA YANG SENGSARA JIWANYA KERANA MENJADI MANGSA DUA DUNIA ...
LAHIR DI TIMUR TAPI DIBESARKAN DENGAN PAKSA DI BARAT
MEMELUK ISLAM SEMASA KECIL TAPI MEMBESAR DENGAN PAKSA DALAM KRISTIAN
DI NIKAHKAN DENGAN UNDANG-UNDANG ISLAM TAPI TERBATAL PERKAHWINAN DENGAN
UNDANG-UNDANG BARAT
NATRAH ADALAH ANAK BELANDA YANG BERADA DEKAT DI HATI ORANG-ORANG MELAYU.
NATRAH MUNCUL KETIKA ORANG MELAYU BERADA DALAM ZAMAN GELORA MENENTANG
PENJAJAH.
KISAH PERKAHWINANNYA, KISAH REBUTAN HAK PENJAGAAN DIANTARA IBU ANGKAT
MELAYU DAN IBU BAPA KANDUNG BELANDANYA DI MAHKAMAH SINGAPURA MENJADI ISU
BESAR SEMUA AKHBAR BESAR DUNIA PADA TAHUN 1950
** Ikuti juga cerita berikut dalam facebook:
Maria Hertogh (1937-2009) born to a Dutch Catholic family living in
Tjimahi, near Bandung, Java. She was raised by Aminah binte Mohamed as
a Muslim. In 1950 riots happened in Singapore when the court returned
her to her biological family.
Keratan facebook
The Maria Hertogh riots or Nadrah riots, began on 11 December 1950
in Singapore after a court decided that a child who had been raised
by Muslims should be returned to her biological Christian parents. A
protest by outraged Muslims escalated into a riot when images were
published showing 13-year-old Maria Hertogh (or Bertha Hertogh)
kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary. Rioting in Singapor...e
lasted till noon on 13 December, 1950. In total 18 people were
killed and 173 injured. Many properties were also damaged.
Hertogh (also known as Nadra) had been in the care of Aminah binte
Mohamed before being returned to her biological Dutch Catholic
parents.
----------------------------------------------
Early life
Maria Hertogh was born on 24 March 1937 to a Dutch Catholic family
living in Tjimahi, near Bandung, Java, then a part of the Dutch East
Indies. Her father, Adrianus Petrus Hertogh, came to Java in the
1920s as a sergeant in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. He
married Adeline Hunter, a Eurasian of Scottish-Javanese descent
brought up in Java, in the early 1930s. Maria was baptized in the
Roman Catholic Church of Saint Ignatius at Tjimahi on April 10 by a
Catholic priest.
When World War II broke out, Adrianus Hertogh, as a sergeant in the
Dutch Army was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army and sent to a
POW camp in Japan, where he was kept till 1945. Meanwhile, Adeline
Hertogh stayed with her mother, Nor Louise, and her five children,
among whom Maria was the third and youngest daughter. On 29 December
1942, Mrs. Hertogh gave birth to her sixth child, a boy. Three days
later, Maria went to stay with Aminah binte Mohammad, a 42-year-old
Javanese woman and a close friend of Nor Louise.
According to Adeline Hertogh, in the version given in evidence
before the court at the hearing in November 1950, she was persuaded
by her mother after the birth of her sixth child to allow Maria to
go and stay with Aminah in Bandung for three or four days.
Consequently, Aminah arrived on 1 January 1943 to fetch Maria. When
the child was not returned, Mrs. Hertogh borrowed a bicycle on 6
January and set out to retrieve her daughter. She claimed that she
was arrested by a Japanese sentry on the outskirts of Bandung as she
did not possess a pass and was thereupon interned.
From her internment camp, she smuggled a letter to her mother,
requesting for her children to be sent to her. This Nor Louise did,
but Maria was not among them. So Mrs. Hertogh asked her mother to
fetch Maria from Aminah. Her mother later wrote and told her that
Aminah wanted to keep Maria for two more days, after which she
herself would bring the child to the camp. This did not materialize
and Mrs. Hertogh did not see Maria throughout her internment. After
her release, she could find neither Maria nor Aminah.
Aminah binte Mohamed's version
Aminah binte Mohamed rejected Adeline Hertogh story. In her
affidavits and sworn testimony to the High Court on several
occasions, Mohamed claimed that Adeline Hertogh had given Maria to
her for adoption in late 1942. She asserted that she, without
offspring of her own, told Mrs. Hertogh then that she would regard
Maria absolutely as her child, whom she would bring up in the Muslim
faith. To this, according to Aminah, Mrs. Hertogh replied that she
would be glad as she herself had been brought up as a Muslim.
Aminah also contested the truth of Adeline Hertogh's internment by
the Japanese. She testified that she and Mrs. Hertogh continued to
visit each other frequently after the adoption until the latter left
for Surabaya to look for a job "about the end of 1943 or the
beginning of 1944." Thereafter the two never saw each other again
till 1950.