Hi there, I'm Mark Wittenberg, founder of MJ Memories and a Michael Jackson fan since the age of 5. 

My mother loved Michael too and used to play and dance to his music all the time.
So I am not joking when I say I was a fan since before I was born...

What caught my attention was Michael's voice. His voice stuck with me.
And not quite in the way you might expect. It was the "And up they went, E.T. and his pals, higher and higher, whoo hooo hoooow..."
Yes, that was the cue to run to the television, and then it was gone...
This happened repeatedly until the commercial was no longer on air.

Then came We Are the World, and I was amazed by that voice...
But being very little, I did not connect the two yet.

I can't remember any children's songs that I liked. I was into real music and listened to the Rolling Stones, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney until...

BAD!

I ran to the radio and shouted, "Who is this?!"
My mother replied, "That is Michael Jackson."
Wow!

Since that day, most of the other music on my tapes was gone, replaced one by one with Michael Jackson's songs.

Then all the magazines, concert specials on TV, and the hype of the BAD Tour followed.

This made me realise that I had become a fan for the third time!

Forgive me for this, but through a child's eyes, the beautiful Black lady in We Are the World was somehow that really cool dude in the BAD video!

At a moment in time when many people were confused about how Michael looked, it felt completely normal to me. No judgement.

And in MJ's words: "It don't matter if you're black or white!"

I was so lucky to discover that we had a family member who worked at Sony Netherlands.

They told me about upcoming album and single releases, and later about the upcoming Decade album.

Some insider information at an early age, and the start of my MJ collection.

Unfortunately, I was too young to attend the BAD Tour. For the Dangerous Tour, I didn't have the money, so I didn't go either...

Then came the accusations against Michael. Devastating.
Especially the way the press mistreated him.

I hated to see that. The way he was misrepresented by so many people gave me the motivation to do better.

You could say HIStory partly wrote my history.

It was the start of the adventure of a lifetime: travelling to many different countries, meeting fans from all over the world, making friends, attending events, working with the media, Radio 538, British radio, television interviews for RTL, CNN, BBC, Japanese TV and more, attending the trial, business meetings, meeting Michael's family, and of course meeting Michael several times!

After all these years of experience and knowledge, you could say I am a Michael Jackson expert.

Publishing the MJ Times newspaper, helping prepare events for Michael, releasing official merchandise, organising release events, attending the trial, witnessing his memorial, and being a guest of Michael's family.

The biggest honour was being introduced as a friend of the family.

I am proud that I always treated Michael like a normal person.

I can talk about this for hours and hours, and that passion is now part of MJ Memories.

And just like Michael's HIStory continues, ours continues too, and we hope you will join us!

Let's make sure HIStory is never forgotten!