Heroines on Sunday

On Monday nights, we record Heroes, so we can watch it at our leisure as a family on Tuesday. It's a great show ("Save the cheerleader, save the world.")

I'm not one of those women who have any feelings one way, or the other, about the verb "to man" or the nouns with feminine versions such as actor/actress and hero/heroine. As a matter of fact, one of my current favorite popular songs is "Hero/Heroine" by Boys Like Girls.

That said, I am always interested in inspiring women. So, I think I'm going to start a blog theme: Heroines on Sunday. This week's candidate: Andree De Jongh.

Born in Belgium in 1916, the Countess De Jongh was a very active member of the French resistance during World War II. She helped found the Comet Line, a route used by over 800 Allied soldiers to escape the Nazis. She personally escorted 118 of those soldiers. After the execution of her father by the Nazis in 1943, she too was arrested. Under tortuous interrogation she admitted to being a key figure in the resistance and the organizer of the escape route. The Nazis did not believe that a woman could have such a key role, so they merely imprissoned her. Eventually she ended up in Ravensbrück concentration camp and then Mauthausen. She survived in the camps until her liberation by advancing Allied troops in April 1945.

In her later life she worked in leper hospitals in both the Congo and Ethiopia, but eventually retired to Belgium as her health began to fail her. In 1985, she was made a Belgian Countess. Andree De Jongh passed from this world in October at the age of 90.

I don't have a daughter, but if I did I'd take this opportunity to encourage her with such examples. While much more trivial, I did stumble across a cool book for girls The Daring Book for Girls which is produced by the same folks who gave us The Dangerous Book for Boys. While both books are supposedly for kids, they look like fun reads for adults as well.

Happy Sunday!