I'm a 23 year old student from the Reinwardt Academy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My bachelor degree will be in Cultural Heritage. Since I was a little kid I've always been interested in history, especially the military part. Through contact with family members who lived during the Second World War, I heard their personal stories. As a little kid you're always amazed by what older people tell, but those stories had a huge impact on me. It's one of the reasons the Second World War is my main interest today.
In September 2015 I started the final year of my study. I started with my thesis, and immediately had a topic: veterans of the Second World War. In the past few years I've visited a lot of commemorations, and thus I've met a lot of veterans. I always wanted to visit them once. After a few sessions with the teachers I decided I'll be writing my thesis on the oral histories from those men and women who lived during the Second World War. To me those stories are heritage that may not be forgotten. Therefore I travelled to the USA in November 2015. I interviewd veterans, family members and museums. Afterwards I did the same in the Netherlands.
Once I wrote my thesis I had to publish the project. This is the motive for this website. You'll find articles about oral history, heritage, war museums and interviews. More will probably be added in the future, so keep an eye on this site.
It's a great priviledge to be born in a free country. A country without foreign occupation and where you live in freedom. But this freedom had a price. If it weren't for the Allied soldiers who fought for it we wouldn't have known the world as it is today. It's on of the reasons why I decided to set up this site. In this section I'll tell more about myself and the site.