The diary of Trees Schretlen
A pair of pages from Trees Schretlen's diary. The pages are decorated with drawings, a gum wrapper and an airborne emblem, among other things.
On 17 September 1944, Operation Market Garden began. Thousands of people watched the paratroopers come down and thought: today history is being made. We will be liberated. Hundreds of these people started a diary.
Trees Schretlen from Nijmegen was an 18-year-old high school student when Operation Market Garden started. She turned her school calendar into a diary about the battle for Nijmegen, her first encounters with Allied soldiers and her stays in shelters when the city was shelled.