My interest in WWI started with WWII. It seems when I look back upon my youth that WWII was always around somehow; WWII movies were on TV a lot, grandparents often spoke about the war, and as children we always played in the bunkers from the Atlantikwall, build in the dunes by the Germans during the war. My interest in fortifications began in my late twenties when I started as a guide in an old Dutch fortress which was build in the 1880’s in my hometown. From there on my interest in the Atlantikwall also grew and I have been a guide in one Atlantikwall museum or another since the early 2000’s.
My first encounter with the old battlefields of WWI was on a visit to the Ieper (Ypres) area in 2003, with fellow guides from the fortress.
Since that first visit my interest in World War I slowly grew .
Then on my first trip to Verdun in 2006 I bought the photobook ‘La Face Cachée/ Die Verborgene Seite’ about moss covered relics like bunkers and trenches in the forests of the Argonne, Verdun and St Mihiel Salient, and I was hooked. Those where places I wanted to visit!
Through a Dutch/Belgian WWI forum I got to know more about these places. Then someone posted photo’s of bunkers in the Vosges mountains and I decided to go there on my next holiday, and I haven’t looked back since. Almost every holiday was spent visiting these places and in between the holidays I did research on how to find the relics, as most of them are off the beaten track.
As I already had photography as a hobby, photographing World War I relics became my passion. Over the years I have photographed many relics and so the idea of making this website was born.
Besides the websites and books I have used to find these places, I also owe thanks to people who were kind enough to help me find WWI relics, or travel with me to the former frontlines.
These people are:
Hans Smeets, Frans Roos, Marc Caluy, Elfi van Leuven, Wim Degrande, Tommy van Doorn, Marij Koekoek,
Roy Vrinten, Maarten and Didi Otte, Gerben Visser, Pierre Grande Guerre (RIP), Aris de Bruin, René Kappert, Geert Brouckaert, Johan Reyheul, M. Georges Haas, Jack Korneef, Christina Holstein, Indiana Hans
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Annelies Visser
