February 1945. Allied leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin meet at Yalta, on the Crimean Peninsula, to plan the final phase of the war. That month, Belgium was declared fully liberated.
Many years later I learned that after my father had joined the Belgian Resistance, he had received word that the Nazis’ SS elite had discovered his activities, so he’d fled Belgium with two of his comrades. They walked through France under the cover of night, hiding in barns during the day, avoiding German trucks and troops, dodging Nazi soldiers on motorcycles and in planes. They walked and walked, until they reached the foot of the Pyrenees. There, they hired a guide who took them over the mountain and into Spain, where they were ultimately captured and imprisoned.
Six months later, Spain, then an ally of Nazi Germany, was in desperate need of fuel, so the Government made a deal with England: oil for prisoners. And so my father was released and sent to England with over 7,000 other Belgian and French refugees.
There had been no way for him to contact me, but one evening during the third year of the war, as I was listening to Radio Belgium, to a broadcast transmitted to Nazi-occupied Belgium from London, I was startled to hear my father’s voice: ‘The time for courage is upon you. It is known throughout the world of your struggles. Salvation is at hand. The Allies will not be thwarted. Roosevelt and Churchill will prevail. Vive la Belgique.’
During his four years in London, my father was able to broadcast such encouraging words to his country as part of the Resistance campaign, and during his time there, he helped thousands of European refugees who had escaped across the English Channel. Towards the end of the war, he had become a significant player in the reconstruction of Europe, having received personal awards from American General Dwight Eisenhower and British General Bernard Montgomery.
The war ended for me when, one day, there was a robust knock at my door. When I opened it, there standing before me was Major General Joseph Lyon, in full dress uniform and white gloves. My father.
‘Papa!’ I cried. I fell into his safe arms and wept.
‘Simone.’ I felt his strong arms around me. I felt tears on my cheek.
I looked up into his face and said ‘Wait, Papa. Wait.’
I reached into my pocket, fumbled for the Croix de Guerre, and pinned it onto my father’s chest. I stepped back, saluted and then once again fell into his open arms.