I haven't forgotten you - Andrée Dumon |
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| "When I started my activities in the Résistance, I knew that one day or another I could be arrested, interrogated, tortured maybe. I was ready to pay the price.” |
| Born in Uccle, Brussels, on 5 September 1922, Andrée Dumon, a determined young girl, not yet eighteen when the Germans invaded Belgium in May 1940, immediately sought to react in any way she could against the despised occupants. Starting with distributing clandestine newspapers, then serving as a courier for her father, active in the growing Résistance, she soon helped men who wanted to get to England. These were Belgians as well as British soldiers on their way to France with the aim to rejoin their units and fight again. Later, she began guiding downed RAF airmen and other Belgians from Brussels across the Belgian-French border on their way South to neutral Spain. She then went as far as Paris in such missions but was denounced by a Belgian collaborator and arrested at her home. Her poignant, moving story tells of her indomitable willpower, courage and resilience, trying to survive the horrible hardships and privations in many of the prisons and camps of Nazi Germany. Her book is also about the fellow patriots with whom she shared her love of freedom and a vibrant homage to those too many who lost their lives in defending it . |
They are not forgotten |
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| After the self-publication of "Je ne vous ai pas oubliés" in 2013, Andrée Dumon was asked why it had taken her so long to tell the full story, especially the details about her detention and the horrific conditions in the Nazi camps. She replied, “At the beginning, I didn't want to talk and my husband Gustave didn't encourage me. I wanted to preserve my family until the day, very long after, when some friends told me I should indeed write down the whole story.” She added, “Now I think we have to tell our story because younger people really should know - for the sake of those who died. Those ‘you' in the title were my companions in the fight. And if I had a message to give to the younger generations, that would be to discover all that their elders did to defend our freedoms in the hope that they would do the same in case those freedoms should be threatened again." |
| This 2022 book “I haven't forgotten you” is the faithful translation of Andrée Dumon's original "Je ne vous ai pas oubliés". It is a tribute to her dynamism, her humanity and her charisma, and the result of a promise that had been made to her by seven of her many friends who have worked together to translate her words into English. They are Geoff Cooper (UK), Fred and Joan Greyer (UK), Keith Janes (UK), Michael LeBlanc (Canada), John Morgan (Ireland) and Edouard Renière (Belgium). To give better knowledge of those “You” she'll never forget, the translators have added notes for many of them after research in various archives. |
| “I haven't forgotten you” is currently only available by contacting me (Keith Janes) at this site. The book is priced at £10.00 - with postage to a UK address currently £3.30. Postal costs for more than one book, or to an overseas address, along with details of how to make payment (BACS, PayPal or cheque), will be given on request. |
| Note that we, the translators, are paying all the costs of producing this book, with any profits going to Mme Andrée Dumon, or whoever she might choose to designate. |
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