Foto: Femmy Weijs
On the morning of July 16, 1957 a Lockheed Constellation collapsed in Biak in the sea, an island of Dutch New Guinea. Only ten people survived the crash, including the complete family Rich: Olaf the father, a well-known lawyer and politician in New Guinea, his wife Nel and their three children. They were saved by Papuans with canoes. At the time it was the largest aircraft disaster with a KLM aircraft in history.
Daughter, Hannie, is suffered severely by the shocking accident and needs to live with the physical and mental scars. Bravely she makes her way through life by coping with the accident, where the memories are sequentially pushed, processed and cherished.
In the book ‘Vlucht van een paradijsvogel’ Marlies Dinjens and Stan de Jong outline the extraordinary history of the family De Rijke and take us along the colonial life in Java, the Japanese camps and camp Amersfoort, the resistance against the Japanese and the Germans, and the exciting episode of Dutch New Guinea. But above all, this gripping book is a tribute to Hannie Rich, survivor pur sang.
Order the book here
