In Memoriam: Andrée 'Nadine' Dumon (1922-2025) - English version
Resistance heroine Andrée Dumon died at home in Nivelles, Belgium, on 30 January 2025 at 9:47 p.m. During World War II, Andrée Dumon saved the lives of dozens of Allied ‘airmen’ (pilots, radio operators, navigators, air gunners, bombardiers) via the evasion and escape Comet Line. She was praised for this abroad and decorated with the highest honours. In Belgium - and especially in Flanders - her name remained virtually unknown to the general public until recently. Andrée died at the age of 102, surrounded by her loved ones.
Door Dany Neudt - 31/01/2025
Andrée Dumon was born in Brussels in 1922. When she was young, she spent six years in the Belgian Congo, where her father, Eugène Dumon, was a colonial physician. After returning to Belgium, she attended secondary school at the Royal Atheneum of Uccle. This secular school was a breeding ground for later resistance fighters during the interwar period. Youra Livschitz, Robert Maistriau and Jean Franklemon - the masterminds of the liberation action on the XXth train convoy from the Dossin Barracks to the Auschwitz extermination camp on 19 April 1943 - became acquainted at the Royal Atheneum.
As a 17-year-old schoolgirl, Andrée Dumon was exasperated by Belgium’s neutrality. She did not understand why Belgium maintained its official passivity while Nazi Germany annexed Austria and Sudetenland, and Hitler and Stalin divided Poland between them. With disbelief, she learned of Belgium’s rapid capitulation after a mere 18 days of German Blitzkrieg.
"With her unwavering courage, Andrée Dumon is one of the great resistance women in Belgium"
The evasion and escape Comet Line
At her father’s insistence, Andrée Dumon joined the Comet Line, a Belgian resistance group specialising in the escape of Allied ‘airmen’, in December 1941. This group was co-founded by another legendary Brussels resistance woman: Andrée De Jongh, aka Dédée, from Schaerbeek. Andrée Dumon was given the code name ‘Nadine’.
The Comet Line helped shot-down pilots escape, as well as resistance fighters in danger due to betrayal or imminent arrest, and Belgian secret agents who landed by parachute in the occupied territory after a mission. The need was great: German anti-aircraft defences were taking down Allied planes all over Europe. No fewer than 250,000 pilots and crew members ended up as POWs. Only about 5,000 managed to escape - a hellish and nerve-racking journey through occupied territory. Those who ended up in Belgium hoped to meet resistance fighters who could help them.
Getting the pilots back to England was an arduous task. The most obvious route, via the heavily guarded Belgian and French ports, was out of the question. Anyone caught was doomed to die. The Comet Line organised a dangerous escape route from Brussels, via Paris, to Spain, crossing the Pyrenees on foot. Those not caught along the way reached San Sebastián and travelled to the British crown colony of Gibraltar or neutral Lisbon. From there, pilots flew to the UK.
Between 1942 and 1945, over 800 pilots and 300 soldiers escaped thanks to the Comet Line. Several Belgian secret agents also got back to London via this route, where they reported to the Belgian State Security.
Word steunend lid van vzw Helden van het verzet
Door vzw Helden van het verzet te steunen houdt u de herinnering aan onze verzetshelden levend. Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn deze mensen in de plooien van de geschiedenis verdwenen. Dankzij u kunnen we hen alsnog de gepaste eer bewijzen.
Family in the Resistance
The Dumon family quickly joined the emerging resistance movement. Through his network, father Eugène Dumon, a Red Cross doctor, became one of the leading figures in the Luc-Marc Intelligence network. This group gathered strategic intelligence - political, economic and military espionage - and delivered it to Belgian State Security in exile in London, which then forwarded it to the Belgian government and the Allied Supreme Command. Andrée’s mother, Marie Plessix, a nurse, gave shelter to wounded soldiers and distributed the underground press, including La Libre Belgique.
At her father’s request, Andrée also started working for the Resistance. She transported documents for Luc-Marc to Brussels, Ghent and Bruges. Thanks to her perpetual smile and youthful appearance, she did not arouse much suspicion - she looked barely 15. Who would suspect that such an innocent-looking girl was committing acts of resistance?
In addition, Andrée undertook small acts of resistance on her own. While cycling through the streets of Brussels, she scattered V-signs cut out of newspapers. This might seem harmless, but make no mistake: anyone caught red-handed by the Nazis faced ruthless punishment. The V-sign is a fascinating but often forgotten story from the Belgian Resistance. Contrary to popular belief, it was not conceived by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill but by Victor de Laveleye of Brussels. On 14 January 1941, De Laveleye encouraged listeners to spread the V-sign everywhere during a broadcast on Radio Belgique. He chose the letter “V” because it stood for Vrijheid (Freedom) in Dutch and Victoire (Victory) in French. His call was heeded en masse: suddenly, V-signs popped up everywhere. They were painted on walls, chalked on paving stones or strewn like newspaper clippings. The campaign spread across Europe and gained worldwide fame when Churchill adopted the V-sign in his widely watched cinema newsreels.
Inspection by customs officers
Andrée Dumon accompanied dozens of British, Canadian, Australian and US airmen from Brussels to Paris, where she handed them over to the next escort. The following anecdote illustrates how risky and nerve-racking these train journeys were. Danger lurked around every corner.
One day, Andrée boarded a crowded train with two British and one Australian pilot. Like the pilots, she had forged identity documents in her pocket. Communication was difficult since Andrée spoke very little English. Suddenly, some French customs officers boarded the train for an inspection. One of the pilots panicked and, instead of presenting his train ticket, showed a box of matches to the puzzled customs officer. Andrée swiftly intervened and retrieved the train ticket from the pilot’s breast pocket.
The customs officer asked what was going on. Andrée concocted an excuse on the spot and claimed the man was deaf. The other two pilots silently showed their train tickets. The customs officer then asked if they were also deaf and dumb. Nervous as she was, Andrée replied that they were two Flemish men who didn’t speak French. Miraculously, the customs officer left it at that.
But the danger was not over yet. A curious passenger remarked that her travelling companions were strange creatures. Andrée reacted immediately: she signalled to the three pilots to stand up. Together, they walked to the last carriage and retook their seats. Fortunately, the rest of the train journey to Paris proceeded without incident.
"The war and the resistance never let go of Andrée."
Hunted by the Nazis
Some 3,000 resistance people worked on the Comet Line in the utmost secrecy. They provided the network with hiding addresses, food and clothing, forged papers, collected money, bought train tickets, stole food stamps, escorted soldiers and liaised with England. They also conducted security interrogations of would-be escapees. They sent their reports to London for verification to prevent infiltration attempts by the German Abwehr.
Most of the Comet Line operatives were ordinary civilians without any military or espionage training. Setting up a secret escape route in an occupied country required enormous courage, creativity and perseverance.
Helping pilots in hiding was a thorn in the Nazis’ side. The Gestapo, SS and Luftwaffe became obsessed with hunting down the escape lines. They went all out to expose, infiltrate and destroy them. Over 700 Comet Line resistance people were arrested, often after being betrayed. Nearly 300 of them died by execution, torture or deprivation in concentration camps.
Nacht und Nebel
On 11 August 1942, disaster struck for Andrée Dumon. She and several others were betrayed by an agent with the code name “Coco”. That morning, the German Secret Field Police or GFP rang the doorbell of her grandparents’ house next door. Her grandfather looked through the window and saw German policemen standing outside. He quickly shouted “German police!” through the communicating door to warn her.
Andrée tried to escape through the back door but collided with officers there. She and her parents were arrested and immediately taken away in separate cars.
Her interrogators were ruthless. They used all means to make her confess: beatings, threats of immediate execution and even blackmail with the arrest of her elderly grandparents. But Andrée did not break. In retaliation, she was given the dreaded Nacht und Nebel status in September 1942.
That meant she disappeared into the darkest caverns of the Nazi empire. From cellar to cellar, prison to prison, concentration camp to concentration camp - until she disappeared without a trace, absorbed into the night and fog. Her family was deliberately kept in the dark about her fate. Starvation and the inhuman working conditions made survival almost impossible. Most Nacht und Nebel prisoners died as a result of exhaustion, abuse or execution.
Agony in concentration camps
For Andrée Dumon, Nacht und Nebel marked the beginning of a horrendous ordeal. She performed forced labour in the prisons of Trier, Cologne, Mesum, Zweibrücken and Essen. She was then transferred to the Groβ-Strehlitz concentration camp. There, she met Nina Vankerkhove, an acquaintance from the Resistance. They attempted to escape together, but a local farmer discovered them and notified the camp guards after only two hours. They were soon locked up again.
Andrée was subsequently deported to Ravensbrück, the concentration camp for women. From there, another transport followed, this time to Mauthausen in Austria. The journey took four days, in bitter cold and with hardly anything to eat or drink. On arrival, Andrée was a mere shadow of her former self. Completely exhausted, she fell down in the snow. With the help of fellow prisoners, she managed to stand up and stumble on. In Mauthausen, exhausted prisoners were shot without mercy.
On the deportation train from Brussels, Andrée got the chance to see her father. He, too, was being transported as a Nacht und Nebel prisoner. They had not seen each other since their arrest in Brussels. They were allowed to speak to each other briefly, but their happiness was short-lived. It was their last conversation. Eugène Dumon died in the Groβ-Rosen concentration camp on 9 February 1945.
The rest of the family was also severely affected. A year after her arrest, Marie Plessix (Andrée’s mother) was released without knowing the fate of her husband and daughter. After her parents’ arrest, Andrée’s sister Aline and her younger sister stayed with their grandparents. Soon afterwards, Aline Dumon joined the Comet Line escape network. Under the code name “Lily”, she took over the role of Andrée and accompanied pilots to Paris. In June 1943, she went into hiding to avoid arrest but remained active in the Resistance. She finally reached London via Madrid in June 1944.
A mother’s embrace
On 1 May 1945, a sunny but freezing cold day, Andrée saw her mother Marie again at a train station in Brussels. They embraced each other for the first time in three long years. They were shocked by each other’s appearance. Marie, dressed in black, was greatly emaciated and looked years older. Andrée was in such bad shape that she needed over two years to recover. At the time, they knew nothing about the fate of Eugène, the father, and sister Aline. Infected with typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever, Andrée spent the first months after returning home in hospital.
After the war, she married Gustave Antoine. Together, they built a successful textile business and had two children. But she couldn’t forget the war and the Resistance. She dedicated herself to the Royal Union of Intelligence and Action Services (RUSRA-KUIAD) and played an active role in the recognition and compensation of Intelligence and Action Agents (IAA). Given the large number of women active in the Comet Line network, she also fought for the recognition of female resistance fighters. The fact that the Belgian army only started recruiting female soldiers in 1975 shows how far behind it was.
Andrée Dumon maintained a very strong relationship with the United Kingdom. ‘Nadine’ represented Comète at all the Royal Air Forces Escaping Society functions in London up to its closure in 1995. Nadine was also Comète’s representative in Belgium for the WW2 Escape Lines Memorial Society from 1987, and attended all our annual reunions in England and throughout Europe until she was unable to attend due to ill health. She was a very loyal supporter of both organisations.
Her contact with the pilots and soldiers she rescued remained intense. She regularly invited them to Belgium and travelled to the UK, Australia, Canada and the US in return. Erica Andrée Horsley, the daughter of a British pilot she rescued, was present at the celebration of her 100th birthday. Robert Horsley gave his daughter the middle name Andrée as a mark of honour. During the celebration, she said:
“From a young age, I had to explain countless times why my name was Andrée. It is an odd name for an English girl. Today, I am honoured to bear a name associated with such an important part of our history.”
This quote illustrates the extraordinary reputation that Andrée Dumon and the Comet Line network still have in the UK and other allied countries.
Did you know that the Comet Line story inspired the TV series Secret Army (BBC and BRT, 1977-1979) and the legendary comedy series Allo! Allo! (BBC, 1982-1992)? The French film La Grande Vadrouille (1966) - starring Louis de Funès, André Bourvil and Terry-Thomas - is also based on escape routes for pilots. With more than 17 million viewers, it was the most-watched film in France for 30 years until Titanic broke that record in 1998.
From silence to speaking out
Like so many resistance fighters, Andrée Dumon remained silent in the public sphere after the war. Were the traumas too deep? Did she feel rejected or misunderstood in a post-war society where, paradoxically, in the Dutch-speaking part of the country, there sometimes appeared to be more of an understanding for the collaboration than for the Resistance?
Andrée only broke the silence after she turned 70. She began speaking in schools, participated in debates and television programmes and actively engaged in remembrance projects. She supported the Belgian Intelligence Studies Centre (BISC) and RUSRA-KUIAD, as a member of the board of directors and a contributor to publications, lectures and exhibitions until the age of 98.
She also collaborated on the documentary La Maison de Verre, directed by Tristan Bourlard, which was broadcast several times. She wrote her memoirs in the book Je ne vous ai pas oubliés. Liberté 1945, which she self-published. The BBC released the documentary Nadine was betrayed by... in 2011. And in 2018, the municipality of Uccle named a street after her.
With her unwavering courage, lifelong commitment and unshakable bravery, we remember Andrée ‘Nadine’ Dumon as one of Belgium’s great resistance women.
With thanks to Mr. Robin Libert (President RUSRA-KUIAD) for reading and supplementing this text.
English translation by Mrs. Linda Weix (RUSRA-KUIAD).
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