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

http://www.ww2online.nl

Zeg aan hallo Eric: Verwelkom naar ons forum.

Can't wait to hear more.

It was a pleasure exchanging links with you.

Zeg aan hallo Eric: Verwelkom naar ons forum.

Yeah, what she said. . .

Welcome aboard! I checked out the site and it looks great. I'm quite jealous of your collection; hope your mortar is inert! My folks have a few artifacts from Europe (my dad's dad was in the 540th, with whom you are familiar, and my mom's dad was an MP but I don't have much info on him.) We have a Mauser Werke Luger, a Nazi flag (about 4x6), and a Deutsche Jägerschaft dagger similar to this one.

Thank you very much for your kind words.. the mortar is actually a practice one found

in holland long time ago.

I have many more items some of them were given to me by veterans who unfortenately are

no longer with us.

This way I am trying to honor them and all those who gave us back our freedom.

A luger is nice but here in Holland one cant have any weapons other then de activated rifles.

Do you have pictures of the flag and the mauser too??

This weekend I went on Sunday to Margraten cemetery to lay flowers on my adoption grave and

on another grave from a fellow forum member, If anyone here on the forum wants me to take pictures

please let me know.

Kind regards

Eric

Yeah, what she said. . .

 

Welcome aboard! I checked out the site and it looks great. I'm quite jealous of your collection; hope your mortar is inert! My folks have a few artifacts from Europe (my dad's dad was in the 540th, with whom you are familiar, and my mom's dad was an MP but I don't have much info on him.) We have a Mauser Werke Luger, a Nazi flag (about 4x6), and a Deutsche Jägerschaft dagger similar to this one.

Do you have pictures of the flag and the mauser too??

I am going to visit my folks in June and I will get photos then.