Andrée de Jongh
Andrée de Jongh (born November 30, 1916 in Schaerbeek / Schaarbeek near Brussels , † October 13, 2007 in Brussels), later Countess Andrée de Jongh, was a member of the Belgian Resistance in World War II .
Escape aid network
She built up an escape aid network for Allied soldiers that ran through several countries and partly accompanied the transfers she organized herself. At the time of the German occupation of Belgium, De Jongh was working as a nurse. She made the decision to join the resistance at an early stage and was inspired by Edith Cavell , an idol of her youth: At the beginning of World War I, the British nurse Cavell helped soldiers of the Entente and resisting Belgians from occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands to escape. She was therefore shot by the German occupiers in Schaerbeek in 1915.
The extensive route system that de Jongh built up over time led from Belgium through France to Spain or to the Channel coast to northern France and was called Réseau Comète (German: Network Comet ) in 1943 . In this way 700 to 800 people were smuggled out of the areas occupied by Germans. It was particularly important for the Allies that there were 288 pilots among them.
After De Jongh was arrested in January 1943 while trying to help escape the Pyrenees , she was sent to prison and later to the Ravensbrück and Mauthausen concentration camps . After her arrest, Jean-François Nothomb took over the management of the network.
Her father Fréderic de Jongh was also active in the resistance against the Germans; he was arrested in June 1943 and executed nine months later in Paris.
Further life
After the war she went first to the Belgian Congo and later to Ethiopia , where she worked in leprosy hospitals.
Awards
- George Medal (Great Britain)
- President's Medal of Freedom (United States of America)
- Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (France)
- Officer Leopold Order (Belgium)
- War cross with palm; Appointment as honorary lieutenant colonel in the Belgian army
- Awarded an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven
- In 1985 she was raised to the rank of Countess by the Belgian King Baudouin I.
See also
literature
- Cécile Jouan (Suzanne Wittek-de Jongh): Comète. Histoire d'une ligne d'évasion. Veurne, 1948.
- Airey Neave: Little Cyclone. 1954. (1973, ISBN 0-340-17406-4 )
- Airey Neave: Petit Cyclone. Brussels 1965.
- Remy: Réseau Comète. 3 volumes. Paris 1966, 1967, 1971.
- WE Armstrong: Une héroïne de la Résistance belge. In: Sélection du Reader's Digest. 1974.
- Françoise van Vyve: Une Belge against the Gestapo. Brussels 1986.
- Jean-François Nothomb: Le réseau d'évasion Comète. In: Bulletin de l'ANRB. 1984.
- Juan Carlos Jimenez de Aberstural Corta: En passant la Bidassoa. Le réseau 'Comète' au Pays basque (1941–1944). Anglet, 1995.
- Etienne Verhoeyen: La ligne d'évasion Comète (août 1941 - février 1943). In: Jours de guerre. n ° 11-12-13, Brussels 1997.
- Peter Eisner: The Freedom Line. 1st edition. 2004, ISBN 0-06-009663-2 .
- Marie-Sylvie DuPont-Bouchat, Eliane Gubin and others: Dictionnaire des femmes belges XIX e et XX e siècles. Éditions Racine, Brussels 2006, Kapitel de Jongh (Dédée) .
- Christian Laporte: Le dernier passage de Dédée De Jongh. In: La Libre Belgique. October 15, 2007.
- Marc Metdepenningen: Dédée a rejoint les étoiles. In: Le Soir. October 20, 2007.
- Obituary. In: The Times. October 15, 2007.
- Obituary. In: The Daily Telegraph. October 18, 2007.
- Obituary. In: The Guardian. October 22, 2007.
- Gilles Perrault: Dictionnaire amoureux de la Resistance. chapitre De Jongh (Andrée), Paris, Fayard, 2014, 156–160.
- Alasdair Macdermott: Comète, a World War II Belgian Evasion Line. In: Roger Coekelbergs et al. (Hrsg.): Memorial book messages and action agents d'action. Antwerp 2015.
- Marie-Pierre d'Udekem d'Acoz: Andrée De Jongh. Une vie de resistante. Racine, Brussels 2016, ISBN 978-2-87386-978-6 .
Web links
- The Comet Escape Line of the WW2 Escape Lines Memorial Society
Individual evidence
- ↑ For de Jongh's biography, her achievements and awards cf. the obituary in the telegraph .
- ↑ cometeline.org , with the subpage "Personnes aidées par la Ligne Comète. Advise for Anglo world wishing access in English. Hulp bij vertalingen naar het Nederlands."
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | De Jongh, Andrée |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Dédée (code name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belgian leader of an escape aid network of the Belgian Resistance |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 30, 1916 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schaerbeek / Schaarbeek |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 13, 2007 |
| Place of death | Brussels |