Dossier Sjef van Dongen
A day after he was rescued in July 1928, Sjef van Dongen became a guest aboard a cruiseship named the Reliance. The audience listened thoughtfully while he told all about his attempt to rescue the crewmembers of the airship ‘Italia’. Deeply impressed by his story, the captain of the cruiseship wrote him the following letter.
How an average Dutch man became known as Hero of the Artic in 1928. Sjef had risked his own life to save others and gave lectures about his adventures throughout The Netherlands for years on end.
4 stories
Sjef van Dongen and his family moved to Spitsbergen in 1923. His father worked for a Dutch coal mining company at Spitsbergen, in later years Sjef would be offered a job here as well.