About the Author

Pim Reijntjes (1919) was serving in the Dutch army during the first days of May in 1940 and he was in Rotterdam when it was bombed, his first horrible war experience. During the war he became active in the resistance and he joined a group of “Engelandvaarders”. This is the name of a group of Dutchmen who went to England during the second World War to take part in the war against Germany. In the beginning of 1943 he left IJmuiden on a fishing boat. But due to a betrayal, the entire group landed in a jail in Scheveningen, the dreaded Oranjehotel.After a few months he was moved to Vucht and then to the concentration camps Amersfoort, Natzweiler (in the Elsace) and Dachau, by Munich. The prisoners had to perform heavy labor. In combination with the lack of sanitation and food, this lead to a lot of victims. In September 1944, Camp Natzweiler was evacuated to Dachau, due to the encroachment of the allied forces. Because the camp for overpopulated, the Natzweilers were moved to subsidiary camps as soon as possible. Reijntjes wound up in Lauingen, where he was put to work in the Messerschmidt factory, where airplane parts were manufactured. On April 1943 he was liberated in Dachau by the American Army, together with twenty three thousand other prisoners. After the was he became a broadcaster with “Radio Herrijzend Nederland” (Radio reborn Netherland). After fifteen years of radio, he moved to television first as news reader of the NOS-Journaal and later as editor and reporter with the television programs of the NOS (Dutch broadcasting company). He retired in 1983. He never lost touch with his old camp mates. Amongst other activities, he served on the Board of the “Vriendenkring van oud-Dachauers” (Circle of Friends of Old Dachau Prisoners).Every year they remember their fallen friends at the Dutch Dachau monument and also at the international Memorial in Dachau.

About the Translater
Growing up in Holland, Marleen Eddlemon was exposed to stories about the war, told by her mother at the dinner table. She doesn't remember a time when she did not know about her mother's cousins, Pim and Louk Reijntjes and the time they spent in a German concentration camp.
It wasn't until she went to Holland for her annual visit in 2006, when her mother gave her the book “Tales of a Concentration Camp” written by her Uncle Pim, that she realized that this was a story that should be told, especially in light of the Holocaust “deniers”. In addition to her uncle's book, she has included information from the Dachau website, which will more clearly give a picture of the horrors of Dachau.
Marleen lives in Jacksonville, Arkansas. The Editor, Melissa Bowen, is Marleen's daughter . She was roped into editing, because of her maticulous nature, and her ability to see dutch expressions translated literally.

Pim Reijntjes lives in Hollandse Rading, The Netherlands