Andree de Jongh

On the 13th of October this year, the world lost a remarkable woman.

Andree de Jongh, a Belgium national, was born in 1916. Trained as a nurse and worked as a commercial artist, de Jongh joined with her father, Frederic, in establishing the Comet Line, assisting escaped Allied soldiers.

Derek Shuff’s book Evader tells of three British crewmen from a crashed bomber who made their way to the underground network, where they were taken to a twenty-four year old woman. She said, “My name is Andree, but I would like you to call me by my code name, which is Dedee, which means little mother. From here on I will be your little mother, and you will be my little children. it will be my job to get my children to Spain and freedom.” One of the shocked airmen declared, “Our lives are going to depend on a schoolgirl.” It was a harrowing escape, and one died, but she delivered the other two to Spain and freedom.

She is estimated to have assisted in the escape of around four hundred soldiers, personally guiding one hundred, eighteen of them to safety.

In 1943 the Gestapo arrested her father and not long after executed him. She was captured the next year. Interrogated and tortured she admitted to having organized the escapes. They didn’t believe so young a woman could have been so central and didn’t order her execution, instead sending her into the gulag of concentration camps. She was liberated by advancing Allied troops in 1945.

That should have been enough for a lifetime.

She went on to serve in leper hospitals, first in the Congo and later in Ethiopia.

As her health began to fail she returned home where she was made a countess. This joined her other awards and honors, including the American Medal of Freedom, the British George Medal, she was a Chevalier of the French Legion as well as of the Belgian Order of Leopold, and given the honorary rank of Lieutenant colonel in the Belgian Army.

Andree de Jongh was ninety.