This is what our war was like

Almost 800 witnesses recount their personal experiences during World War II. This book is the result of a unique school project, which sent a thousand young people out to interview their grandparents’ generation about the war in their youth, seventy years ago. These penetrating and intimate stories of ordinary people in particularly unusual circumstances leave no one unmoved. Pieter Serrien masterfully weaves hundreds of stories into a haunting history of the Second World War, letting the witnesses themselves speak as much as possible.

Since 2010 Pieters youth project Zo was onze oorlog gives young students the opportunity to interview witnesses of WWII. Five years later almost 1500 students participated. This gigantic archive of more than 1000 witness stories was the inspiration for Pieters thirds book Zo was onze oorlog (That was our war, Manteau, 2014) about the daily life under occupation from 1939-1945.