I am equally pleased to let you know of the publication of another book involving Dutch-Paris: Luck through Adversity: The Memoir of a Dutchman’s Flight to Freedom through the Dutch-Paris Escape Line of World War II by Pieter Rudolph Zeeman.

Any of you familiar with the story of Dutch-Paris will remember Rudy Zeeman as the young Dutchman with the guts to open the back door of the Wehrmacht car taking him to Gestapo HQ in Paris; roll out onto the sidewalk, and run into the night. If you’ve looked through The Escape Line or Gewone Helden, you’ve seen some of his photographs from his Engelandvaart from Amsterdam to Spain.

But those are only the highlights. The full story comes alive in his memoir that he researched and wrote over many years. Rudy took the time to ask for and include his companion’s stories from his trek.  Some of those companions were Dutch; others were downed Allied aviators from across the US.  He went back to the Pyrenees after the war to look at the places he walked across and talk to people who had helped him years earlier. He remained friends with some of them and very generously shared what he had found out about Dutch-Paris with me when I was doing my research.

Zeeman himself painted the cover of his book. He has similar oil paintings of his trek in the museum of the Chemin de la Liberte in St-Girons, France, and in the Engelandvaarders Museum in the Netherlands.

This is a gripping true story of adventure, danger, quick thinking, endurance and friendship. It takes you right into the thick of what it felt like to escape across Occupied Europe with the Nazis on your heels.

ISBN: 978-1734699913