Hi all,
My name is Eric Bijtelaar and I am 33 years old.
I am married and have one daughter from 7 years old. ( time flies :-)
I live in Purmerend a town in the north of Holland.
Since I was 8 years old I started developping an intrest in World War Two history.
The reason for this was because my uncle was transported to germany to do forced labor and
ended up in the streets of Dresden after the bombing to take care of the wounded.
He brought back several items from the war and unfortenately for me my nephew who was older then me
made sure he got most of them and sold them to pay for his motorbike
Anyway I got a pair of german officers boot and documents pictures and a couple of medals my intrest was born.
From that year onwards I spent most of my time reading books and ( since there was no internet and ebay ) going
to garage sales to find items. I have built up a collection of various items and I have been in contact with several veterans
amongst them one german veteran and have gotten their permission to publish some short stories about their life in the army
and scanned pictures. ( I even received some items from them to place in my collection and never to be sold of course.)
I also adopted the grave from a fallen soldier at the Margraten cemetery in Maastricht and when I visit the grave to lay flowers
I also visit the grave from a 101st veteran who has also a page on my website.
I created a website and recently I made some changes in the layout.
Please feel free to visit my website and let me know what you think.
I hope to make new friends who also enjoy history like I do.
Best regards
Eric Bijtelaar