Michael van der Hout sorts through his father's memorabilia to craft a story about his family's history. He sends the story -- complete with photos and documents -- via e-mail to 200 people, many of them strangers, across the United States, Canada and Europe. (Photo by Olivia Bucks)

PORTLAND, Ore. — They say every family has a story. But outside of relatives, who hears all those tales from the past?

Then there's Michael van der Hout.

Show the slightest interest — a nod will do — and by day's end, you'll be on his e-mail list. Instead of another message about Rolexes or male supplements, you'll get a tale from van der Hout's colorful family history.

Every story contains documents and photographs. Some are dramatic — World War II scenes and arrest papers. Some are tender — a boy waving the Dutch flag in a tulip field. Some are mundane — a box of matches van der Hout borrowed from an uncle long ago and forgot to return.

Keep reading and before long, you'll know all about Aunt Pleuna, Uncle Fritz and Pieter Peck, the family dog.

Most important, you'll learn about van der Hout's father, Jack, a Dutch resistance fighter captured by the Nazis during World War II. He escaped from a series of camps before being shipped to a hard-labor camp. He escaped from there, too, walking 340 miles back home. He eventually immigrated to the United States, landing in Chicago before moving west and settling in Portland.

This rooting around the past began about two years ago when van der Hout's mother died. His father had passed on four years earlier, so it fell to van der Hout, a 51-year-old legal services assistant at a Portland law firm, to clean out the family home.

While sorting, van der Hout stumbled upon boxes of photographs, documents and letters collected over decades. He had heard his father's stories, but they took on new meaning. In his father's wallet, van der Hout pulled out a telegram sent by his father: "We are free, liberated from the devil Hitler."

The stories were so powerful that van der Hout decided to comb through the memorabilia and give them structure by putting them down on paper.

He shared a few stories with co-workers. They spread the word, and others asked to read the stories. Then someone forwarded a few to a friend, and they were forwarded again. Now van der Hout sends stories to 200 people, many of them strangers, across the United States, Canada and Europe. Van der Hout can be contacted at vbuttonbox(at)yahoo.com.

Van der Hout says his father was born in Holland in 1922 and was going to horticulture school when the Nazis invaded. Because his father spoke several languages, he was recruited as an interpreter for British soldiers. He was arrested while running a speakeasy for the Dutch resistance and taken to a camp with Gypsies, Jews, political prisoners and resistance fighters.

Van der Hout says his stories give readers a slice of history with a personal touch.

"When you hear a story about a real person, it becomes kind of touching," he says. "It's a kind of history you won't find in a history book."

Craig Bachman, an attorney at Van der Hout's firm, says the stories remind him of his own father.

"My Pop was in the Army, in the 103rd Division in France and Germany," Bachman says. "He passed away a year ago, and one of the things I found was a diary he kept in the military. He went in at 18. He was a farm boy from Nebraska, and everything was new to him. A lot of that is reflected in Mike's stuff. There's a tremendous lesson there."

Van der Hout writes at the end of the day, laying out the photographs and documents he'll include with each story.

"It doesn't take too long to write one of these," he says. "When it seems like I'm about to run dry, I always come across something."

He knows, though, the day will come when there are no more of his father's stories to tell.

But he has a plan.

"My mom," he says, "has a lot of stories."

* * *

Here's a sample of Van der Hout's family stories. It's titled "Michile."

"In his long journey home after escaping hard labor in Germany, my father wandered into areas that had not yet been liberated by the Allies. As a result and on nine separate occasions, he was turned back over to the Gestapo (four times by the French), rearrested, beaten and confined until each respective area was liberated.

"Weeks later, famished and starving, he dizzily trekked through miles of human carnage strewn across the battlefields of Belgium. Through the haze, he gazed at monks attempting to bury some of the dead. Their monastery leveled, the monks had been surviving in their remaining cellars and catacombs.

"My dad approached these men. He told them how far he had come and how he was heading back to his home in Holland. Realizing that my dad was worn and malnourished, the monks took him back to their underground lodgings to feed and look after him until he was feeling better. Over the next couple of days, the men cared for and observed him very closely.

"One morning, the abbot lit a candle and motioned for my father to follow him down a long corridor. At the end of the corridor was a trap door. The abbot opened the trap door and brought up a young Flemish woman named Michile. He handed the woman to my dad with the instructions, 'Please take her home, but if she has no home, then marry her and take care of her.' So he walked the young woman safely back to her home in Belgium and continued his return to Holland."

(Tom Hallman Jr. is a staff writer for The Oregonian. He can be contacted at tomhallman(at)news.oregonian.com.)