Babbelegûchjes

Cultural heritage, heritage loss and heritage mediation are recurring topics in the study of Minorities & Multilingualism at the University of Groningen. A Minorities & Multilingualism student is interested in these topics and when in class the example of the Dutch train hijacking of 1977 came up, he was ready and eager to listen. He learned that, almost exactly 41 years ago, one of the most striking and infamous hostage crises in the Netherlands took place. On May 23, 1977, a train was hijacked close to Drentsche Aa river bridge at de Punt on the provincial border between Groningen and Drenthe, in the northeast of the Netherlands. This, together with a hostage taking at a school in Bovensmilde, was done by a group of Moluccan people as a cry for recognition to the Dutch government and people. Though it was an event of great importance for Dutch history and the location is of great symbolic value, the site is not seen as an official heritage site by the state. However, in rece