PART V

Belgium

ALTHOUGH THE BELGIAN government had built a line of defensive fortifications on its border with Germany after World War I, on the morning of May 10, 1940, German glider planes silently flew over the fortress and began the invasion of Belgium. After 18 days of fighting, Belgium’s King Leopold III surrendered on behalf of his country.

Unlike most other countries invaded by Nazi Germany, Belgium had been occupied by Germany before, during World War I. Many Belgians clearly remembered the first German occupation, when German soldiers had brutally massacred Belgian women and children and destroyed entire villages. During that occupation, Germans were first referred to as Huns, named for some particularly brutal fourth-century warriors.

The Germans tried to show a different face to the Belgians during this new occupation, as they were anxious to keep the Belgian economy running for their own gain. But most Belgians were not fooled by the Germans’ outward politeness.

The strict ration cards the Germans forced the Belgians to live on was enough to prove that the German expression of concern for Belgians was a lie. Belgians lived on meager rations while their German occupiers ate heartily. The only bread available to Belgians was a thick, dark, sticky, black substance that could not be cut with a knife and that contained very little nutritional value. The only way to get extra food without using the German-issued ration cards and stay moderately healthy was to buy or barter for groceries on the illegal black market.

There were stiff German penalties for buying food without using ration cards, yet many hungry Belgians took that risk. Other Belgians took additional risks by joining Resistance groups that engaged in numerous activities made illegal by the Nazis. One of the first acts of Belgian Resistance was the printing and distribution of underground newspapers. La libre Belgique (Free Belgium) was a Belgian paper that had been printed secretly during the first German occupation. The first World War II edition was published on July 1, 1940, approximately two weeks after Belgium’s surrender.

Some of the information printed in La libre Belgique was obtained by those associated with information-gathering Resistance networks, such as Zero, Luc, and many other smaller local groups. On information-gathering missions, members of these networks often escorted a trapped Allied serviceman or two to safety. At first, these were Allied servicemen who had been trapped while fighting on Belgian soil. But soon they included many British and, later, American airmen who were shot down during missions over Nazi-occupied Belgium (and neighboring Holland). Many who survived were quickly rescued by Belgian civilians, given civilian clothing, and hidden. Several escape lines were created to escort these Allied servicemen from one safe house to another, across Belgium, through France, and over the Pyrenees Mountains, the border between France and Spain. From there, it was relatively easy (most of the time) for the pilots to get back to Great Britain.

ANDRÉE GEULEN

Andrée Geulen was a young Belgian schoolteacher in 1943 when she was recruited by the Committee for the Defense of the Jews to escort Jewish children from their homes into hiding. Andrée personally helped approximately 300 Jewish children to safety, often right under the noses of the occupying Germans. After the war she worked to reunite Jewish families, and to this day she keeps in contact with many of the children she rescued. She received a Righteous Among the Nations award from Yad Vashem, and in 2002 a French-language film called Un simple maillon (Just a Link) was made about her wartime rescue activities. When Yad Vashem awarded her honorary Israeli citizenship in 2007 for her rescuing activities, she accepted the award saying that she had merely done her duty.

Andrée Geulen in occupied Brussels, 1944, with German officers behind her.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Andrée Geulen

The two main Belgian escape lines for Allied servicemen were the O’Leary Line and the Comet Line, the latter named because travel on it was unusually swift. The Comet Line was created and organized by a 25-year-old Belgian woman named Andrée de Jongh. Many Belgians assisted the work of both the O’Leary and Comet lines, some by opening their homes as safe houses and others by forging false documents and ration cards for the servicemen on the run. Many women, like Andrée de Jongh, personally accompanied the men as they traveled because women were less likely to come under suspicion and be stopped for questioning by Germans than men were.

Anti-Jewish laws began several months after the invasion of Belgium, and in the summer of 1942 many Jews without Belgian citizenship were rounded up by the Germans and shipped to concentration camps. But when the Germans moved against Belgian Jews, rescue organizations worked very hard to try to prevent the deportations.

The efforts of the Committee for the Defense of the Jews (CDJ) saved approximately 3,000 Jewish children during the Holocaust. Rescuer Andrée Geulen, who worked with the CDJ, escorted hundreds of children to safety during the war.

Belgian nuns were also heavily involved in rescuing Jewish children, often working closely with the CDJ, escorting and housing children in convent boarding schools and orphanages. Mothers superior often made the decision to accept or deny a child, and very few Jewish children were refused a hiding place at these institutions. After the war, nearly 50 Belgian nuns were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

The Battle of the Ardennes, more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge, fought between the Allies and Germany began in December 1944 in Belgium’s Ardennes forest. It was a near-victory for Germany, but by the end of January 1945 it was over, and the Allies had successfully pushed the Germans out of Belgium.