Fernande Keufgens during the war.
Girl in the Belgian Resistance: A Wakeful Eye in the Underground by Fernande K. Davis.
THE TEENAGED GIRL walked hand-in-hand with the five-year-old boy through the edge of the Ardennes Forest in southern Belgium. Their destination was the tuberculosis sanatorium (hospital) in Banneux. The little boy was going there, supposedly as a patient, and the girl had a false work permit for the hospital in her pants pocket. She carried a red handkerchief containing the boy’s clothes. Inside the bundle of clothes was hidden a packet of false identification cards that was to be delivered to the nuns at the sanatorium. The nuns were planning to distribute the cards to the English spies that would be landing nearby that very night.
As they turned a corner, a beautiful meadow came into view. The girl was very tired. She and the young boy had already walked five miles together. She knew that he must be even more exhausted than she was, but she didn’t feel strong enough to carry him at that point. She tried to distract him from his fatigue by singing all the children’s songs he might know. The little boy joined in and seemed strengthened and buoyed by the singing.
She was greatly relieved when she finally saw the sanatorium in the distance.
“Oui, c’est ca!” (Yes, that’s it!) said the little boy, as enthusiastically as he could.
Suddenly, two Gestapo agents jumped out from behind a mound of dirt and pointed their guns at the travelers, screaming in German, “Halt!” and “Work card!”
The girl remembered what her father had said when she told him she wanted to join the Resistance: “Never show fear to your enemy [the Germans],” he had said. “In your best German speak louder than they do.”
Now, as two Gestapo agents shouted orders at her, she tried to heed her father’s words and stay very calm. She took as long as possible to fish the fake work permit out of her pants pocket as the small boy sobbed beside her.
The agent took the work permit and examined it. He asked the girl where she worked. The girl responded loudly in German, to the obvious surprise of the Gestapo agents. “Can you not read German? The answer is written on the card, in German. I work over there,” she said, pointing to the sanatorium.
The agent then demanded to know what was inside of the red handkerchief and who the boy was. The girl responded, “This child has tuberculosis. In the bundle are his dirty clothes. Do you wish to see them?” she asked, gesturing toward the handkerchief. The Gestapo agent quickly stepped backward and waved his arms nervously while screaming, “Rause! Rause! Schnell!” (Get out! Fast!)
The teenager and the sobbing five-year-old were back on their way to the sanatorium while the Gestapo agents returned to hide behind the mound of dirt.
The girl’s legs suddenly felt like rubber. Although she had fooled the Gestapo agents, she now had a tremendous urge to run away as fast as she could. But she knew that she was still in view of the agents, so showing any fear was out of the question.
Although she was only 17, Fernande Keufgens had already successfully fulfilled one mission for the Army of Liberation, a branch of the Belgian Resistance stationed in the city of Liége. This was her second mission, and she must not fail. If those Gestapo agents had discovered the false identification cards in the boy’s bundle of clothes, the nuns’ work at the sanatorium would certainly have been crushed and the British spies captured, tortured, and imprisoned or shot. So she remained as calm as possible, walking steadily with the boy until they reached the entrance of the sanatorium. The nun opened the door to them immediately. She had seen the entire episode. Fernande handed her the identification cards. Then she left within half an hour.
What chain of events had led this teenaged Belgian girl to this terrifying situation where she had successfully fooled two adult men—trained Gestapo agents? Two things: the Nazi invasion of her country and an absolute refusal to assist the Nazi war machine.
Before the war even began, Fernande’s father had foreseen the Nazi invasion and the forced draft into munitions factories that would certainly occur afterward. So he arranged for 15-year-old Fernande to move farther away from the German border, to work in the town of Verviers.
Then in 1942, two years after the invasion, Fernande was summoned back home to Montzen. The Nazis had finally caught up with her, and she was ordered to report to the local train station to be shipped to a German labor camp/munitions factory. If she failed to do so, her father would be imprisoned. Fernande would do anything to save her father, but nothing would make her create bullets and bombs for the Nazis. What to do? In Fernande’s mind it was simple: she would report to the station, board the train, and then jump off it before it left Belgium. She would then join the Belgian Resistance.
After jumping from the train, Fernande walked for miles through fields and farmland, carefully avoiding paved streets and Nazi border guards, until she arrived at the home of her uncle, Hubert. He was a devout priest who was working in the Army of Liberation, a branch of the Belgian Resistance movement stationed in Liége. At first he tried to talk Fernande out of joining the Resistance, telling her how dangerous it would be, how she was too young, how she would most likely not be given any important assignments anyway.
But he finally saw that Fernande would not be swayed. She didn’t care about the quality of the assignments or the possible dangers of the work: she just wanted to do something—anything—to fight the Nazis. Uncle Hubert gave Fernande a false identification card and a roll of counterfeit food stamps, and, with tears in his eyes, he sent her to a contact in the Army of Liberation, where she became a courier.
Thousands of young Belgians in the city of Liége were regularly being stopped on the street at gunpoint and forced onto trucks headed for German munitions factories. Avoiding these forced deportations was like a dangerous game, one that Fernande—now a full-fledged Resistance worker—could not afford to lose.
The Germans took all the best Belgian goods and food for themselves, leaving the Belgians to survive on what meager items they could buy with ration cards. Fernande couldn’t afford to buy any luxuries, but she did like to spend some of her free time in Liége’s small city square. Called Place de la Liberté, the square was filled with shops and was popular with young Belgians.
One day Fernande was wandering through Place de la Liberté in a somewhat distracted fashion. She had just been handed a treasured éclair by a kind baker who had seen her gazing longingly at the treats in his window.
Suddenly she looked up. German trucks had rolled into the square, blocking the streets in all directions. Guards poured out of each truck, blocking each sidewalk with guns while others grabbed every teenager within reach and forced them into the backs of the trucks. Screams and wails pierced the air. The scene was one of terror and confusion.
Fernande could not afford to be caught. As a member of the Resistance, she was now an official enemy of the Reich! She remembered her father’s words once again and calmly walked up to a young-looking German soldier. She put her hand on his gun, smiled at him, and in perfect German shouted, “You can’t hold up a compatriot, my friend. I am running for my train to Aachen [Germany], where I work.”
The young soldier’s partner aimed his rifle at Fernande as she walked past, but the first soldier stopped him from shooting Fernande. She was, after all, obviously a German. The second soldier asked to see her ID, but she flirtatiously answered him over her shoulder, “No time, but thank you, darling, I must catch my train.” She darted around the corner, thanking God for her escape and more ready than ever to fight the Nazis for their treatment of the young people who hadn’t been so fortunate.
Fernande survived the war, fighting with the Belgian Resistance to the end. She married an American soldier named Bill Davis, who had been stationed in Belgium, moved with him to the United States, and became a university professor of French. In 2008 she wrote a book detailing her experiences during the war years called Girl in the Belgian Resistance. Fernande continues to give talks regarding her Resistance work.
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