Date of birth:

September 5th, 1922 (Brussels, Belgium)

Date of death:

January 30th, 2025 (Nijvel/Waals-Brabant, Belgium)

Nationality:

Belgian

Born 5 September 1922 in Brussels. Daughter of Eugène Dumon (Haine-Saint-Pierre 16 April 1896 - Gross-Rossen 9 February 1945) and Marie Plessix.

Andrée Dumon joined the Comète escape route in December 1941, but even earlier, like her parents, she was active within the Belgian resistance. Comète was a resistance group founded by another legendary Brussels resistance woman: Andrée De Jongh, alias Dédée. Within Comète, Andrée was given the code name ‘Nadine’. This group specialised in helping mainly shot-down Allied aircrew escape. Their escape route was from Brussels, via Paris and then on foot across the Pyrenees to end up in San Sebastian. From Spain and Gibraltar, the pilots then returned to England. Through this dangerous route, 1,100 people managed to escape with Comète's help. As an escort herself, Nadine also made the journey dozens of times until Paris where the pilots were handed over to another escort.

The group paid a heavy tot for her work. 700 members were arrested of whom nearly 300 died by execution, torture and hardship in the camps. Other sources report other numbers, but in the same order of magnitude.

On 11 August 1942, things went wrong for her too. The Gestapo arrested her at home, along with her parents. After tough interrogations, beatings and blackmail methods, she was given ‘Nacht und Nebel’ status with which she disappeared into thin air without a trace. This was the beginning of a long journey past German prisons and concentration camps. On the train by which she was deported from Brussels, she met her father one last time. He perished in KZ Gross-Rosen shortly before the end of the war. After a failed attempt to escape, she ended up in Ravensbruck and later in Mauthausen, which camp she narrowly survived.

Seriously ill and exhausted, she returned to Brussels and took years to recover. The war never left her and she dedicated herself, among other things, to the appreciation of female resistance fighters and spoke in schools about her experiences during the war. She also kept in touch with many of the soldiers she rescued.

Andrée Dumont died aged 102 on 30 January 2025. With her died one of Belgium's great resistance women.

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• Photo 1: Christtwice1 (CC Attribution Share Alike 4.0)
• - Obtiuary.
  - Obtiuary La Libre Belgique" and "Het Laatste Nieuws.
  - In Memoriam: Andrée ‘Nadine’ Dumon (1922-2025) – Helden van het verzet
  

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