My apologies that I have left you in the dark about my progress on the book about Jan van Boeckel these past three months. A book about my quest for my long lost uncle. Lost – the quest for Jan van Boeckel, Progress was … Continue reading Still going strong
After having seen Dachau and Flossenbürg concentration camps, visiting family, and writing to countless archives in 2015, 2016 was a rollercoaster ride. Here are some of the things I experienced and saw: Continue reading The quest for Jan van Boeckel continues in 2017
I wrote this episode of the quest for Jan van Boeckel when I was still at the very beginning of my quest for my uncle, who left Haarlem at the beginning of 1944 for a journey into the unknown. Ever … Continue reading Reweaving the tapestry of a lost life
This is an episode of the quest for Jan van Boeckel: From Holland to Bavaria As the story of Jan is anchored in Haarlem, I travelled to that city near the dunes several times in 2016. Now that I am writing, I find that words come to me … Continue reading Researching Haarlem 1935 -1945
Second draft. I’m working on a seemingly endless stream of research, writing, re-writing and fine-tuning. Still wonderful people helping me to get this story told. No time for blogging yet… Continue reading 84279 words
I have now been following Jan van Boeckel’s trail for a year and two months. The amount of hours, kilometres, words, papers and gigabytes that have been invested in this Quest is absolutely staggering. Continue reading The Quest for Jan continues …
A Bavarian spin-off: A journalist in Bavaria has published a beautifully worded and moving newspaper article about Jan van Boeckel and about my quest for him. Continue reading In the Bavarian press
Interested in the book? Continue reading Jan van Boeckel – a factual novel
It has been a whirlwind year with intense meetings, dusty archives, wild nature, heartache and joy. Continue reading A year of questing
This is an episode in “the quest for Jan van Boeckel: From Holland to Bavaria” At the end of 2016 I will have completed my quest for Jan van Boeckel. Everything I have discovered will be described in a ‘memoir which never was’. A … Continue reading A memoir that was never written
This week the display panel was officially inaugurated during a small, intense ceremony Continue reading Embracing the past at Saal
A proces that will end in a book that can offer an insight into Jan’s life and times and the choices he made. And show – through what he had to experience – how precious freedom and democracy are. Continue reading The book and the proces
Sporen van zijn reis zijn echter gedurende de afgelopen decennia teruggevonden door verschillende familieleden. Op dit moment vervolg ik hun zoektocht en weef alle beschikbare informatie samen tot een zo gedetailleerd mogelijk verhaal. Continue reading De zoektocht naar Jan van Boeckel (in Dutch for a change)
I, however, am spending all my time perusing archives. Hours and hours of intense detective work. Old letters, reports, testimonies and orders. Books, articles and papers. In French, German, Flemish and sometimes in Russian (which I cannot decipher). The delicate material at times nearly crumbling in my hands. Continue reading A needle in a haystack in Brussels
During my visit I was interviewed about my Jan van Boeckel project and although the resulting article is written in German (tip: run it through google translate), it gives quite a good overview . You can read the article on the ITS website. Continue reading A tour of archives: the ITS
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