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Elsie Maréchal
Elsie Maréchal (21 June 1894 – 25 March 1969) was an English woman who became active in the Belgian Resistance during World War II. As a member of the Comet Line, she helped downed Allied airmen evade capture by German forces. After being betrayed in November 1942, she was sentenced to death and subjected to the 'Nacht und Nebel' policy designed to make such opponents of the Nazis 'disappear' in prison camps. She survived to tell her story to her family back in England and to receive awards for her work. Two of her children, Elsie and Robert, also survived prison, but her husband Georges was executed. Early life Elsie Mary Bell was born on 21 June 1894 in Acton, Middlesex, the daughter of Robert Edward Bell and Alice Mary (née Gowen). After attending school in Great Yarmouth, Elsie trained at Norwich Teacher Training College and, on leaving in 1915, was accepted as a teacher by the London County Council. While working in London during the First World War she met a young ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acton, Middlesex
Acton () is a town in West London, England, within the London Borough of Ealing. It is west of Charing Cross. At the 2011 census, its four wards, East Acton, Acton Central, South Acton and Southfield, had a population of 62,480, a ten-year increase of 8,791 people."Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density" . ''''. . Retrieved 31 October 2014. |
Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Free State of Prussia, Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). The Gestapo committed widespread atrocities during its existence. The power of the Gestapo was used to focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Female Resistance Members Of World War II
An organism's sex is female (symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and males are results of the anisogamous reproduction system, wherein gametes are of different sizes (unlike isogamy where they are the same size). The exact mechanism of female gamete evolution remains unknown. In species that have males and females, sex-determination may be based on either sex chromosomes, or environmental conditions. Most female mammals, including female humans, have two X chromosomes. Characteristics of organisms with a female sex vary between different species, having different female reproductive systems, with some species showing characteristics secondary to the reproductive system, as with mammary glands in mammals. In humans, the word ''female'' can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belgian Resistance Members
{{Disambiguation ...
Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct language formerly spoken in Gallia Belgica *Belgian Dutch or Flemish, a variant of Dutch *Belgian French, a variant of French *Belgian horse (other), various breeds of horse *Belgian waffle, in culinary contexts * SS ''Belgian'', a cargo ship in service with F Leyland & Co Ltd from 1919 to 1934 *''The Belgian'', a 1917 American silent film See also * *Belgica (other) *Belgic (other) Belgic may refer to: * an adjective referring to the Belgae, an ancient confederation of Celto-Germanic tribes * a rarer adjective referring to the Low Countries or to Belgium * , several ships with the name * Belgic ware, a type of pottery * Bel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1969 Deaths
1969 (Roman numerals, MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1960s decade. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 – Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to London's Gatwick Airport, killing 50 of the 62 people on board and two of the home's occupants. * January 14 – USS Enterprise fire, An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65), USS ''Enterprise'' near Hawaii kills 28 and injures 314. * January 16 – First successful docking of two crewed spacecraft in orbit and the first transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another (by a space walk) between Soviet craft Soyuz 5 and Soyuz 4. * January 18 – Failure of Soyuz 5's service module to separ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1894 Births
Events January * January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire. * January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United States. * January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts. February * February 12 – French anarchist Émile Henry sets off a bomb in a Paris café, killing one person and wounding twenty. * February 15 ** In Korea, peasant unrest erupts in the Donghak Peasant Revolution, a massive revolt of followers of the Donghak movement. Both China and Japan send military forces, claiming to come to the ruling Joseon dynasty government's aid. ** French anarchist Martial Bourdin dies of an accidental detonation of his own bomb, next to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in London, England. March * March 1 – The Local Government Act (coming into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterloo, Belgium
Waterloo (; ; ) is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in Wallonia, located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium, which in 2011 had a population of 29,706 and an area of . Waterloo lies a short distance south of Brussels, and immediately north-east of the larger town of Braine-l'Alleud. It is the site of the Battle of Waterloo, where the resurgent Napoleon was defeated for the final time in 1815. Waterloo lies immediately south of the official language border between Flanders and Wallonia. Etymology From Middle Dutch, composed of water (water, watery) + loo (forest, clearing in a forest, marsh, bog). History The name of Waterloo was mentioned for the first time in 1102 designating a small hamlet at the limit of what is today known as the Sonian Forest, along a major road linking Brussels, Genappe and a coal mine to the south. Waterloo was located at the intersection of the main road and a path leading to a small farming settlement in what is now Cense. The crossing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rixensart
Rixensart (; ) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. On January 1, 2018, Rixensart had a total population of 22,401. The total area is 17.54 km2 which gives a population density of 1,277 inhabitants per km2. The municipality consists of the following former municipalities, now districts: Rixensart, Rosières and Genval. Genval-les-Bains is a local beauty spot, a 100-year-old lake with a fountain, and framed by trees, houses and restaurants. Rixensart is home to the beautiful private-owned Château de Rixensart. Rixensart is served by two railway stations (at Rixensart and at Genval), connecting it with Brussels to the north and Louvain-la-Neuve to the south. The new arrival of the Brussels RER, will improve both train stations and upgrade the number of trains going from Brussels to Namur to 4 per hour. This will also bring more people to the municipality to live. The municipality is now classified as a commuter town due to its pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (, ; ) was a Belgian colonial empire, Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colonization of the Congo Basin, Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. Leopold II of the Belgians, King Leopold II of the Belgians attempted to persuade the Federal Government of Belgium, Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold establishing a colony himself. With support from a number of Berlin Conference, Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition of the Congo Free State in 1885. By the turn of the century, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp Complex
Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The three Gusen concentration camps in and around the village of St. Georgen/Gusen, just a few kilometres from Mauthausen, held a significant proportion of prisoners within the camp complex, at times exceeding the number of prisoners at the Mauthausen main camp. The Mauthausen main camp operated from 8 August 1938, several months after the German annexation of Austria, to 5 May 1945, when it was liberated by the United States Army. Starting with the camp at Mauthausen, the number of subcamps expanded over time. In January 1945, the camps contained roughly 85,000 inmates. As at other Nazi concentration camps, the inmates at Mauthausen and its subcamps were forced to work as slave labour, under conditions that caused many deaths. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrée De Jongh
Countess Andrée Eugénie Adrienne de Jongh (30 November 1916 – 13 October 2007), called Dédée and Postman, was a member of the Belgian Resistance during the Second World War. She organised and led the Comet Line (''Le Réseau Comète'') to assist Allied soldiers and airmen to escape from Nazi-occupied Belgium. The airmen were survivors of military airplanes shot down over Belgium or other European countries. Between August 1941 and December 1942, she escorted 118 people, including more than 80 airmen, from Belgium to neutral Spain from where they were transported to the United Kingdom. Arrested by the Nazis in January 1943, she was incarcerated for the remainder of World War II. After the war, she worked in leper hospitals in Africa. De Jongh was the recipient of the George Medal from the United Kingdom, the Medal of Freedom with golden palms from the United States, and many other medals for her work during World War II. In 1985 she was made a countess by the king of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
