The Comet Escape Line (eBook)

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The Three Ds

Having been brought up in avenue Émile Verhaeren in Schaerbeek by her father Paul, a principal at a local primary school, and her mother Alice, along with her sister Suzanne, Andrée de Jongh, also known as Dédée, started her career as a poster designer before training as a nurse. There are obvious links of location and vocation tying her to Edith Cavell, not to mention the almost identical circumstances of a German invasion about thirty years after the one experienced by her compatriots in the First World War.

Andrée was not alone in her determination to do something to help once German jackboots had resounded through the streets of Brussels and once a German military administration began to be established under General Alexander von Falkenhausen. Many Belgians had spontaneously helped either Allied soldiers to escape after the evacuations to England or Allied airmen who had been brought down in early defensive battles. It had become apparent, however, that the freelance help offered by generous-minded local citizens to evading Allied servicemen had its limitations and obvious dangers. They could not provide a co-ordinated escape route and, as the Germans became more established in occupied countries, the danger to both evaders and helpers grew exponentially.

Belgian Resistance Movements

Belgian resistance during the Second World War has not received the same attention given to the movement in France. This may be partly explained by the fact that it lacked a figurehead such as the French had in General de Gaulle. Instead, the Belgian Government in exile was at odds with King Leopold, who had surrendered to the Germans in order to save Belgian lives. On the other hand, the people of Belgium largely blamed the Government in exile for the chaos in Belgium.

As the dust began to settle after the German invasion and the evacuation of British and other Allied forces from Dunkirk, the German Militärverwaltung was imposed to replace Belgian administration and gradually the process of registering the Jewish population and the issue of spurious ‘letters of employment’ led in due course to the deportation of Jews in August 1942. The horrific implications of what was happening to the Jewish population led to a growing effort by Belgian citizens to do something about it, or, in other words, to resist. This included efforts by the Catholic community to register Jewish children in Catholic schools, while individual priests sheltered Jews wherever they could be hidden. Father Joseph André,1 a chaplain to parishes in Niemen, provided temporary shelter for Jews until more permanent arrangements could be made. His immediate neighbour was the German Kommandantur. However, rather than being just passive recipients of help, the Jews themselves became active participants in underground and clandestine movements and activities. The Committee for the Defence of the Jews, founded by Hertz Jospa and Have Groisman, which was linked to the Independent Front resistance organisation, was set up and succeeded in rescuing thousands of Jews, including 2,500 children.2

An exponential increase in resistance activity was a direct result of the introduction of compulsory employment in Germany, which was enacted from 8 October 1942. Large numbers of men went into hiding and as a result became dependent on a network of helpers to shelter and feed them. In response to this development, the Belgian Government in London set up an organisation called Socrates to support the men evading forced labour. It is thought to have saved about 40,000 men from deportation. Most resistance organisations, however, grew from the ground upwards. They included the White Brigade, formed in 1940 by Marcel Louette, a schoolteacher who built the brigade around liberal youth movements.3 The White Brigade provided information to the Belgian Government in London about German military movements and establishments, intelligence about V-bomb sites and tips on German agents. Based largely in the port of Antwerp, the White Brigade would play an important role during the relief of the port when British and Canadian forces advanced eastwards. Its members were experts in sabotage, including cutting telephone wires and dynamiting bridges, but during the relief of Antwerp their role was reversed when they countered German sabotage efforts and thus helped to keep the port intact so that it could be used by Allied shipping for vital resupply of the advancing forces. As with most resistance organisations, the White Brigade became a target for Gestapo counter-resistance measures and eighty-one of its 125 leaders were arrested, interrogated under torture and either sent to concentration camps or executed.

Formed largely of Belgian ex-military personnel, the Secret Army, also known as the Belgian Légion, was created by the merger of two separate paramilitary organisations. Like other resistance movements, it saw a rapid increase in recruitment following the official forced labour order in October 1942. The Secret Army was split into three major zones covering Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia.4

The Independent Front was formed from the clandestine Communist Party of Belgium and grew to become a broad church of socialists and liberals. The Independent Front had a strong presence in Brussels and in industrial areas, and much of its work was focused on helping the families of resistance fighters who had been arrested by the Nazis as well as evaders in safe houses. It also made a significant contribution to the thriving clandestine forces in Belgium.

The Communist Party was also the foundation of the armed partisans, a movement that resulted from the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

One of the most significant aspects of the Belgian resistance movement, as it had been during the First World War, was the clandestine press. The Communist Party produced a newspaper called Le Drapeau Rouge, while other newspapers included La Libre Belgique, Le Voix des Belges, Le Clandestin and the Front, which was one of the most widely distributed. As the German authorities had censored the regular press, some journalists moved to the underground press, where they could express their opinions freely until the Gestapo caught up with them. Writers included Robert Logelan, under the pen name Peter Pan, and Paul Struye.

The impact of the clandestine press was not lost on the Gestapo and by July 1943 they managed to locate the printing press for Le Drapeau Rouge. Rather than shut it down, the Gestapo continued to publish editions with messaging that served their purposes. The clandestine press retaliated by publishing their own edition of one of the authorised newspapers, Le Soir, containing news and editorials that would not have passed the Nazi censor. The authorities clamped down again and thirty-two members of the Belgian resistance were arrested and deported to concentration camps from which they never returned.

The resistance battle was also fought on the airwaves. Belgian broadcasters such as the National Institute for Radio Broadcasts (NIR) strove to keep their voice. Transmitters were run underground in Belgium, while some were moved to France. However, the main way of communicating with the resistance was through the BBC. Listening to it was forbidden by the authorities but a resistance mission destroyed the records of radio owners in Belgium, making it impossible for the authorities to track them down. It was via the BBC that the resistance could receive coded messages about agent insertions or collections as well as supply drops.

Another significant resistance organisation was Groupe G, or Groupe général de Sabotage de Belgique. As its name suggests, Groupe G had a clear mission to cause as much disruption as possible to the German authorities and it was highly successful. It was formed by students of the Free University of Brussels, leading members of whom were Jean Bergers and André Wendelin. Groupe G worked in co-ordination with the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and was based in Brussels, Liège and Namur. Leaders of the various groups travelled to England to receive training in sabotage techniques or radio communications. They were then parachuted back into Belgium once they had achieved a standard of proficiency whereby they could teach others. Equipment for Groupe G was also parachuted into Belgium by SOE, which gave them the raw materials to carry out their operations. Having been trained in Britain and supplied with the equipment they needed, Groupe G became a formidable force and their sabotage exploits ranged from destroying twenty-eight electricity pylons in January 1944 to sabotaging twenty-nine locomotives in August the same year. After the Allied landings in Normandy, Groupe G continued to work in co-operation with Allied forces to disrupt railways and electrical networks.

Commander Charles Claser had helped found the Belgian Légion in July 1941. In July 1942 he travelled to England, where he worked with Commander Henri Bernard, who was head of the 2nd Section, and with members of the SOE to draw up plans for a possible Allied landing on the Belgian coast. On his return to Belgium, Claser set up a separate organisation, the Corps Franc Belge d’Action Militaire. The CFBAM was divided into two sections, one of which included direct action operations and the other sabotage. However, German intelligence had got wind of the arrangements and the Gestapo moved in to break up the plans. Many resistance members were arrested and either executed or sent to concentration camps. Claser was sent to Gross-Rosen concentration camp, where he died. In response, London sent out...