02-12-2015
Visiting the archives
Hello guys!
Have you seen the first episode of my documentary? What do you think of it? Did it make you curious? Well, the story my grandma told me, made me curious so I decided to go to the archives, where I went today.
I never went to the regional archives before so I didn’t know what to expect. But the people working there were really helpful and they helped me finding a way to start my search for Mr Otten and his family.
I found a picture that is similar to the picture of my grandmother, it had a text at the back what said that the family was from Belgium and that they were refugees. They were from Turnhout and they found shelter by the family Heerkens in the Nieuwlandstraat, that’s my family!
I kept searching and found a card with information about the family. I also found some information about the story that my grandma told, about the three daughters who dissapeared at the same time, strange isn’t it? This dissapearance of the three daughters is getting me tangled into this story, I really want to know what happened there, and Rob is curious too right now. So, we decided to visit several cemeteries in Tilburg and I came back one hour ago. Well that was the strangest visit to cemeteries ever.
Rob filmed again today so if you want to know what we found more, just take a look at the video! It will be online tomorrow, we are editing it right now.
30-11-2015
Strange things are happening
Hi everybody,I guess miracles can happen.
I have an interesting subject for my graduation research. Saturday I was chatting on the phone with my grandmother. You know: How is school? - how is life? The regular subjects to talk about with a grandmother. When we were talking about the things that are happening in the world these days, with ISIS and ofcourse the refugee situation, my grandmother told me a very strange story about something that happened to her and our family a hundred years ago. So today I decided to visit my grandmother and I took my friend Rob with me!
Before she started the interesting story I wanted to know more about, we were talking about a lot of things, with a lot of cookies and coffee. Back in the days, in the Great War (during 1914 - 1918) a lot of refugees came to Holland, Tilburg, from Belgium. My grandmother told me that her grandmother took Belgium refugees into her house. One of these families were called the Otten family. The father of the family, Doctor Otten, was a well-fortuned man from Antwerpen. Together with his three daughters they lived at the house of where my grandmothers lives nowadays.. Dr. Otten’s wife was missing during their journey, while they flee from Belgium to the Netherlands. They lost her on the station of Roosendaal and never saw her again. It was difficult for Dr. Otten because he was missing his wife terrible, and he became mentally ill and his daughters had a lot of problems taking care of him.
At the end of the Great War they got a place to live in the Spoorzone for themselves. After they left my grandmothers house the family Otten have never been seen again. The only thing my grandmother knows about the story is that there are rumours going on that Dr. Otten killed his daughters. Nobody really knows what happend to the family...
There were some people who were trying to find out what happend. But my grandmother told me that anyone who got involved gets cursed, sick and some people even die. Kind of scary, don´t you think?
These stories made me think about the refugees situation that is happening now. There are some things that are the same, how is it to be forced to leave your home? Horrible I think, but I am also really curious what happened to Dr. Otten and his family in that time. I think I will start to research about the equal things I see at refugees this period and about the refugees in history. Hope I will find as much as information I can use for my research documentary.
About Rob, he is my best friend and he agreed to help me shooting a mockumentary as a part of my assignment! It's gonna be about the refugee situation back then and now. We already shoot the first episode today but it will first be ready to see for you guys tomorrow! See you!
28-11-2015
Refugees Problems Nowadays
Okay, this blog contains some more serious information, I’m sorry for that guys! But I hope you would read this, and think about the subjects where I’m writing about, because it is becoming a really serious problem nowadays.
A few days ago I saw a documentary on Dutch television, it was about refugees who fled from Syria through Greece, they followed their dangerous trip to ‘freedom and safety’. And it made me think, that there are a lot of things about the refugees problem that are conserning me.
Me, personally, I think this problem is very big but I wouldn’t know the answer. There are so many fleeing from warfare to our ‘save’ Europe, and I think we have to give them shelter and food, just like we did in the Great War with the Belgium refugees or with the Joegoslavich refugees, we are a free country and we care for our people, so that is a very good thing. I am happy that we can help in that way, but still I’m concerned why so many people are against these plans and are against these refugees and even aggressive or racial to these people. That makes me confused and even a bit scared.
It made me think what I would’ve done if I, myself would be a refugee. If I fled from warfare to a saver place, put in several different places for shelter, no privacy, and only the fear of putting back to the unsafe country you’ve come from. Maybe I would even have family back there, what should I do? What should I feel? I don’t know. And that is confusing, I can’t even relate to the feelings those refugees have, and I feel sorry for them.
That makes me think, what would YOU do? If you were a refugee? Let me know by my Facebook page, so maybe we can talk about this subject, because I really think it is important to talk about this, and feel the same about this. We should welcome these persons, and not give them the feeling they are not welcome here. What do you think?
I made a small survey for you about this subject, because I was thinking, this would be a good subject for my documentary, because there is a lot of things going on RIGHT now about this subject. Can you help me by filling in this survey? You can also subscribe your e-mailadress so we can talk about this subject later during my documentary research. It would help me a lot. Many thanks
This link will lead to the survey:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ENnAP1_v4M5CKjSypv5S0sBdTPFW5kuLFtkkdD5Inr8/viewform
24-11-2015
Sometimes school is really frustrating
Hey guys! What’s up? How is life going?
This blog is containing other information than you expect from me, because it is something that is driving me crazy and is very important for me.
As you probably know, I am on my last year of school, did my Advanced Courses and now I’m ready to graduate with an internship or an documentary research but there is the biggest problem. I want to make a documentary, but I still don’t have many subjects I want to research. And that is really driving me crazy because I want to start.
First I thought that it was an good idea to write some subjects down, where I am interested in. So I thought about traveling, because as you can expect from me, that is one of my biggest passions. I thought that I could travel around the world and make a documentary about my travel, and about everything I saw that is inherent to IEMES. But I don’t really have the money to make a world-trip so that is not a very good idea. Maybe I could even choose for a current issue in the society like the refugee streams.
I was thinking maybe something with history, because that is my second best interest, but history is so broad, what subject can I choose there? Maybe something with the first or second world war? Or even further in history? Napoleon? Neanderthalers? I have absolutely no idea.
So now I am struggeling with finding a subject for my documentary even more, even my friend Rob doesn’t know anything for me.
So, maybe you can help me? Did you make a documentary for your research and what was your subject? How did you choose? Can you guys help me
