Memorial Resistance Line Comet Schaerbeek

Memorial plaque at the former home of the De Jongh familiy.

Andrée (Dédée) De Jongh was a Belgian resistance fighter during the Second World War.
She worked as a nurse in Malmedy but after the German invasion in May 1940 she returned to Brussels where she served the Red Cross.
After the surrender of Belgium, Andrée De Jongh nursed wounded British soldiers in Bruges. She also came into contact with escaped prisoners of war.
Together with a friend Arnold Deppé, trained as a radio technician, she founded the Comète (Comet) network and mapped out an escape route for soldiers.
Deppé lived in Bayonne and contacted the local resistance in the South of France in order to arrange a passage over the Pyrenees.
In Bayonne he met the De Greef family who had fled to the South of France in May 1940. Elvire De Greef-Berlemont, alias Tante Go, soon became the linchpin of the entire organization in the Pyrenees region. The pilots stayed in her house and were able to prepare for the dangerous and difficult crossing of the Pyrenees. Her sixteen-year-old daughter Janine regularly travelled with Andrée De Jongh to pick up 'collis' (pilots) in Paris.

The winter of 1942-1943 was a bad time for the Komeet line. Due to heavy snowfall and flooding, the route over the Pyrenees became impassable. Some escapees had to abandon their attempt and return to the base camp in Urrugne, the house of Francia Usandizaga, where they were forced to wait for better weather conditions.

The Gestapo was hot on the heels of the line and raided Dédée's house in February 1942. Her father Frédéric was initially able to escape and moved to Paris, later he would be shot on Mont Valérien. Her sister Suzanne who worked as a courier was arrested on 2 July 1942. The employee Nadine Dumon was arrested together with her parents on 11 August 1942 in Ukkel. A hundred employees of the Comet line were arrested, because the line was constantly infiltrated by German counter-intelligence.
On 15 January 1943 the Gestapo raided the farm of Francia Usandizaga in Urrugne, the last stop before the big crossing. Dédée would be accompanying her 25th crossing through the Pyrenees there. 118 people had already made this crossing safely, of whom 80 were airmen.
She was arrested together with Usandizaga, her helper and 3 pilots. Francia Usandizaga later died in KZ Ravensbrück.

Dédée was locked up in several small prisons where she was constantly interrogated harshly by the Gestapo.
On 1 August 1943 she was deported to Germany as a Nacht und Nebel prisoner. After a period in Ravensbrück she was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp.
After an agreement between Himmler and Count Bernadotte, nephew of the Swedish king and vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross, she was released together with 800 other female prisoners on 22 April 1945.

After the war Andrée De Jongh dedicated herself to the care of lepers in various African countries. The last years of her life she lived in Brussels where she died in October 2007, at the age of 90.

For her actions during the war she received the American Medal of Freedom with golden palm and the British George Medal. In France she became Officier de la Légion d'honneur. In Belgium she received the following honours: Officer in the Order of Leopold, War Cross 1940-45 and Medal of the Resistance. She was given the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel in the Belgian army.
In 1985, she was ennobled with the title of countess.
She was also made a doctor honoris causa by the Catholic University of Louvain.
On 30 November 2023, 4 Stolpersteine were laid at her home in Emile Verhaerenstraat in Schaarbeek in memory of her parents Frederic De Jongh and Alice Decarpenterie, her sister Suzanne and herself Andrée De Jongh.
On the facade there is a memorial plaque for the resistance line she founded, “De Komeet”.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck