Back to the Past: the Train Hijacking of 1977

Disclaimer: Persons and events in this story are entirely fictional. They bear no resemblance to anyone or anything. 


He still dreams about it occasionally. He still can see the hijackers, hear the gunshots, smell the penetrant air of human excrement and feel the fear. He was 21 years old when the train he took to visit his parents in Groningen got hijacked by Moluccans. He hadn’t visit his parents in half a year. Amsterdam was way too exciting and he had made too many new friends to spend his weekends in the boring North of the Netherlands. However, it was his mother’s birthday so he decided to take the train and pay his mother a surprise visit. He was drowsing in when the train stopped slowly. “Are we in Groningen already?” The three weeks that followed were a nightmare, he barely talks about and tries to suppress it. Which he is really good at, only in those damn dreams it still haunts him. But last night it was different, he saw things more clearly than normally, it almost felt like he was in the train again, he could almost feel the trainchairs he slept in for three weeks. After he checks his agenda, he knows why. Today, the 23rd of May, it is exactly 41 years ago that the hijacking begun. “It is already that long ago?” In his job as a psychologist he advises people on a daily basis to go back to the place they experienced a traumatic experience, to confront themselves with the past. Maybe it’s time that he takes this advice personally.

The hijacked train from above (ANP)

The last years it got more difficult to elude the hijacking. The families of the hijackers, who got killed, filed lawsuits against the government. They state that the government killed the hijackers with premeditation, while the Dutch State claims that all the perpetrators died in a hail of bullets. According to the relatives of the hijackers, however, at least two of the hijackers were executed up close while they were wounded and unarmed (Marselis, 2015).

Although he agrees with the families, it riles him that the hijackers are made the subject of suffering. He, and the 54 others, are the ones who have to live with this traumatic experience every day again.

After much deliberation, he decided to go back to De Punt, the place where the hijacking took place, for the first time in 41 years. While driving, he already returned to that spot in his mind. He thought about that one small farm, one of the few things that he could see through the small, light space in the darkened windows of the train. He liked to look at the farm, because it made him think about the farm of his parents, and that thought gave him hope and made him feel more safe and calm. Would the farm still be there? And would it still be the same?

When he arrived at De Punt, he was quite surprised that there was no specific place of remembrance at all. He remembers an article he once read about heritage sites, or the 'heritagescape.' The article was written by Garden (2006) and he learnt from it that a heritage site consists of components that can be recognized by three principles, which are boundaries, cohesion and visibility. These three principles seemed to be non-existant at first glance. He expected something more. Something more confronting perhaps, but also something that let him know that his nightmares are not an outcome of something that has been forgotten.
With a lump is his throat, he got out of the car and he walked through the grass towards the railway while looking around. He looked in the direction of the farm, and saw that it was still there, but it was extended a lot. It felt strange that if you did not know that this was the place where it all happened, it seemed a very peaceful location, although 41 years ago it was the base of the most bloody government intervention since the second world war. He felt disappointed that there was no clue that this was the place where it all happened. No boundaries that mark a heritage site. No cohesion that tells a story of the past. No monuments or signs. On the other side it felt good that this once so horrible place turned into such a calm and peaceful spot. He watched the trains passing by and after a long walk, he decided to go back home.

The farm nowadays (own picture)

When he got home, he had mixed feelings. It was suprising to see that there was no visible heritage site, but moreover, he felt relieved that the - in his mind - terrible place had turned into just another meadow. 41 years ago, he could only have hoped that it all would end this way and that he would be able to return to the spot alive. He was glad to be home again with his wife, and he went to bed early. That night he slept better than ever before and the dreams about the hijacking turned into dreams about the peaceful place the railway in De Punt is nowadays.  

Sources:

Garden, Mary-Catherine E. “The Heritagescape: Looking at Landscapes of the Past.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 12, no. 5 (2006): 394-411.

Marselis, R. “Remembering Dutch-Moluccan radicalism: Memory politics and historical event television.” Sage Journals, Memory Studies volume 9 (2015): 203-217.

SL, SB, MB