Fernande K. Davis, Girl in the Belgian Resistance: A Wakeful Eye in the Underground (2008) — a Book Review

11 February 2016

A short, inspiring book about an unusually adult 17 year old’s resistance to deadly tyranny

Fernande K. Davis (her American married name) was 16 and 17 when the Nazis invaded her country. Her 130 page book, Girl in the Belgian Resistance: A Wakeful Eye in the Underground, is an apparently decades-delayed look at her activities in support of the Belgian Resistance.

Though few in included number, her exploits are hair-raising. At least so, for readers who can imagine the dangers involved in traveling around with false papers and through Nazi lines, while on missions to save Jewish people or deliver and collect information.

The story is admirably simply written

Stylistically, it may be suitable for parental reading to spiritually precocious children.

Here is a shortened example, taken from the beginning of the tale before Fernande joins the Resistance:

By now the Belgian and French armies were marching on these same roads, going in the opposite direction. They were heading north to confront the Germans at the front line, hoping to halt the invaders. With their machine guns, tanks and trucks, they commandeered the roads.

Thousands of families with horses and wagons, even wheelbarrows, were fleeing.

Tuck, tuck, tuck, tuck, tuck...went the low-flying aircrafts, strafing the refugees. The planes would regain altitude, the return for the next attack. When it was over, we crawled out of our hole to attend to the wounded and dying who had not escaped the carnage.

After one of these attacks, I found a little red-headed girl, about thirteen, lying on the side of the road in the fetal position. She looked exactly like my younger sister. Screaming, I ran over to find that it was not Cécile. I touched her face and hands to make her respond. Her body was still warm, but she was dead. Struck with horror, I screamed obscenities at our enemy. Agony and anger were creating rage in my heart. How could God let this happen to a beautiful young girl and all these innocent people?

Typical of her assignments:

A visitor who pretended that he had an appointment with my uncle, Father Hubert, came into the kitchen where I was helping Marguerite.

He said a password and pulled me into the small, dark, private dining room. Without introducing himself, he told me to leave within the hour and take the bus, if possible, back to the German border where I had just come from. “You will cross over the border on foot and stop at the farm near your Uncle Alphonse. You should look as though you are working there. Enter the farmhouse by the stable door. A young Jewish escapee from a Nazi holding camp will be waiting for you.”

Representative of her near misses with almost certain capture and death:

[W]e were in for the biggest shock of our lives. Within seconds, two members of the Gestapo [German State Police] stood in front of us. They had been waiting for us behind a mound of dirt piled up on the edge of the field. They wore long, gray-blue coats with what looked like a huge chain around their necks holding large metal letters, “GESTAPO,” across their chests.

Two demons out of hell, I thought! They jumped out at gunpoint screaming Halt! and Arbeitskarte (Workcard]! at the top of their voices. At that moment, the last words of my dear father flashed through my mind: Never show fear to your enemy. In your best German, speak louder than they do.

Black and white photographs

The book is illustrated with numerous photographs, showing many of the places and people that the account revolves around. These help anchor and expand readers’ imaginations. Artfully done.

Highly recommended

Girl in the Belgian Resistance: A Wakeful Eye in the Underground, abbreviated in recollection though it is, will linger definitively in most readers’ memories. A tonic for our narcissistic and often cowardly age.

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Fernande K. Davis, Girl in the Belgian Resistance: A Wakeful Eye in the Underground (2008) — a Book Review