World War II Resistance Fighter. Countess Andrée de Jongh, nicknamed Dédée, was born in Schaarbeek, Belgium. One of her earliest heroines was Edith Cavell, a British nurse shot by the Germans during the First World War for helping British troops escape from German custody. Following the German invasion of Belgium in 1940, Dédée, who was trained as a nurse, moved to Brussels, where she helped to care for captured Allied troops. It was here that she began to develop the idea of creating an escape line for Allied POWs. Working with her father, a school headmaster, and her aunt, she established an escape route known to British Intelligence as the "Comet Line". This route, based in southern France, brought Allied evaders to a series of safe houses over an exhausting route through the Pyrenees, and across the French-Spanish border, where they were delivered to the British Consulate. Both Dédée and her father were captured by the Gestapo in 1943. Her father was executed, but in spite of admitting, under torture, that she was in fact helping evaders to escape, she was allowed to live. Sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, she was eventually freed by the advancing Allied armies in 1945. In all, the Comet Line helped over 800 Allied troops escape German custody. For her wartime efforts, she was awarded the British George Medal, the United States Medal of Freedom, and the rank of Chevalier of the Order of Leopold, and was also granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Belgium Army. In 1984, she was made a countess. Following the war, she continued to work as a nurse in leper hospitals in the Congo, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. With her health failing, she moved back to Belgium, where she died at the University of Woluwe-St-Lambert in Brussels.
World War II Resistance Fighter. Countess Andrée de Jongh, nicknamed Dédée, was born in Schaarbeek, Belgium. One of her earliest heroines was Edith Cavell, a British nurse shot by the Germans during the First World War for helping British troops escape from German custody. Following the German invasion of Belgium in 1940, Dédée, who was trained as a nurse, moved to Brussels, where she helped to care for captured Allied troops. It was here that she began to develop the idea of creating an escape line for Allied POWs. Working with her father, a school headmaster, and her aunt, she established an escape route known to British Intelligence as the "Comet Line". This route, based in southern France, brought Allied evaders to a series of safe houses over an exhausting route through the Pyrenees, and across the French-Spanish border, where they were delivered to the British Consulate. Both Dédée and her father were captured by the Gestapo in 1943. Her father was executed, but in spite of admitting, under torture, that she was in fact helping evaders to escape, she was allowed to live. Sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, she was eventually freed by the advancing Allied armies in 1945. In all, the Comet Line helped over 800 Allied troops escape German custody. For her wartime efforts, she was awarded the British George Medal, the United States Medal of Freedom, and the rank of Chevalier of the Order of Leopold, and was also granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Belgium Army. In 1984, she was made a countess. Following the war, she continued to work as a nurse in leper hospitals in the Congo, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. With her health failing, she moved back to Belgium, where she died at the University of Woluwe-St-Lambert in Brussels.
Bio by: Steve Niederloh
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