Last Saturday I visited the viewing day and had the pleasure to talk to Bert den Brok himself.
The first picture sums up nicely how he got into this hobby of collecting fire brigade equipment and army trucks: it shows his father on the roof of the ex-Canadian Army 15-cwt truck plus trailer serving with the local fire brigade. (Early post-war a lot of ex-army trucks were used by essential civil services like fire brigades.) Over the years Bert did own American military vehicles, but Canadian vehicles were his true interest because the region where he lives was liberated by Canadian units in 1944.
Source:
http://www.beeldbank-berghem.nl/
Mr. den Brok decided to downsize his collection because of redevelopment of the site where he had it stored for the past decades. During 45 years of collecting he has amassed a great selection of military and fire brigade artefacts. Parts of his collection were already sold in the past few years, the remainder is currently under the hammer: 2,000 lots which cost him 4 months to sort, catalogue and put on display for the auction.
Also see:
http://brabantn.ws/7diM
https://www.bd.nl/oss/berghemse-verz...tems~a2fa79cf/
https://www.bd.nl/oss/kijkdag-berghe...ocht~acbdb491/
https://youtu.be/Npb2cnHPjsc
