This article is taken from the "Experts" section of the July 2025 issue of Omalius magazine.

How did women integrate resistance movements during the 40-45 war?

Axel Tixhon: Women were found in resistance networks hiding Jewish children, Allied soldiers and airmen, and political opponents. These people were often housed temporarily before being exfiltrated by escape routes from the occupied territories to Spain and then Great Britain. The hiding networks relied on small family units, hermetically sealed from the outside world, but very open on the inside. Naturally, when a family welcomed someone under its roof, all its members, especially the women, took part. Their involvement was therefore an extension of the traditional role they played at the time.

We also observe profiles of emancipated women. For example, Louise-Marie Danhaive, known for her literary activities before the war, became involved in the underground press. She thus broke away from the traditional role of women. There were also lesser-known personalities such as Juliette Bernard. Involved in a folk group in Fosses-la-Ville before the war, she was to enter the Resistance, mainly in the intelligence sector and helping Communist Party supporters.

Although quite rare, some women also took up arms, like Madeleine Tasset (Andenne), a photo of whom has been found showing her handling a machine gun and wearing secret army garb.

Resistance women have often been invisibilized, how do you explain this?

Bénédicte Rochet: First of all, there are factors specific to the history of Belgian resistance and politics. In the aftermath of the 2nd World War, the government had to deal with thousands of resistance fighters, some of whom were armed, while others were part of the Front de l'indépendance, a predominantly Communist network whose size raised fears of revolution in our country. Churchill and Roosevelt urged the Belgian government to take back the reins of power and maintain order, relying on official police forces and the Belgian army. In this context, the resistance was denigrated and, above all, disarmed.

From November 1944 onwards, resistance fighters demonstrated to gain recognition for their status. These demonstrations were to be swept under the carpet by the government and even the press. Even today, commemorations focus mainly on the army. And when we talk about the Resistance, we pay tribute to those who died during the war.

Many women, moreover, won't apply for status recognition because they don't identify with the military connotation associated with it at the time. What's more, since they often joined the resistance with the whole family unit, it was the father of the family who would submit the application for recognition. All this contributed to the invisibilization of resistance fighters.

A.T.: At the symposium, Ellen De Soete, founder of the Coalition 8 mai, gave a very moving testimony. She explained how her mother, an arrested and tortured resistance fighter, built her whole life on silence. Her ordeal was the consequence of the fact that others had spoken out. It was therefore essential for her to keep silent so as not to endanger her children. If they knew, they too might be tortured. It was only at the end of her life that she began to speak out. Ellen De Soete explained that, as children, their mother forbade them to go out or invite friends to the house. The scars caused by the war often went beyond the individuals themselves to have an impact on the whole family, including subsequent generations. It was this culture of silence that contributed to the invisibility of women resistance fighters.

B.R.: Starting in the 60s and 70s, there was a shift with gender studies. Studies would initially focus on women at work and women's rights, but not at all on their role in wartime contexts. It wasn't until the late 90s and early 2000s, therefore, that history turned its attention to women resistance fighters during the 40-45 war.

At the symposium, you also addressed the relationship between today's far right and gender issues. Women's rights are often undermined by far-right parties, yet in France, Italy and Germany, the leading figures of these parties are women. How can we explain this contradiction?

A.T.: It's hard to answer, as it seems so illogical. It seems more like an opportunistic posture than a desire to make the genders equal in society. The presence of women at the head of far-right movements in Europe is a means of deradicalizing the discourse. We also know that, in the political communication of the far right, there's no shortage of paradoxes. In a way, these parties like to play up the gap between what is expected of political figures and what they say or do. So a woman who makes a speech that's borderline masculinist is acceptable in these parties, whereas it wouldn't be in a traditional party.

B.R.: The political scientists who took part in the symposium also provided an element of response that joins and completes the story. In their platforms, these parties claim to defend women's right to a sense of security. They tell them: you're lucky, you're free and you live in a context of freedom of expression, but you lack physical security. And who puts this security at risk? It's these migrants, these foreigners who rape our women and who are designated as the common enemy. This talk of security can affect some women. Those who joined the Nazi party as early as the 30s, did so with the idea of living in a secure society sheltered from the violence of Communists, Jews, etc.

Did Nazism also rely on great female figures?

B.R.:We only began to look at the women of the Third Reich in the 1990s. Women often played a role as wives. Examples include Magda Goebbels, wife of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, or Emmy Sonnemann, wife of Hermann Göring. These women played a role in networking and supporting the regime, organizing dinners and receptions, for example. Jonathan Glazer's recent film, "The Zone of Interest", illustrates this role of women. It focuses on the family of the Auschwitz camp commandant. It shows how his wife establishes a welcoming family climate and thus plays an important role in supporting her husband, even though she knows what's going on in the camp on the other side of his garden wall.

Aside from wives, over 500,000 women enlisted for the Third Reich, as camp guards, nurses and so on. And then there were a few personalities who didn't act as wives. Leni Riefenstahl, for example, made documentary films that supported the party.

A.T.: And these were probably the most effective films of Nazi propaganda!

The Nazi party's program for women has evolved over the years. In the '30s, it was all about keeping women safe. In the 40s, women's role was to produce babies to support the Aryan race. And then, in 43, as the Nazis realized they were losing the war, the cursor moved again: women were then engaged in the war industry.

Memorial work among the general public often focuses on the consequences of Nazism, less on the mechanisms and rhetoric that enabled the Nazis to come to power. Are the methods and rhetoric of the time similar to those of today's far right?

A.T.: Yes, for example in the search for scapegoats and the development of fears. At the symposium, political scientists spoke of "moral panics". Today, the far right insists, for example, on the decline of moral values, pointing the finger at transgender people or people with different sexual preferences. It will insist on the need to transform the social model to return to a traditional one, all the while instilling fear. The instrumentalization of fears is the foundation of the electoral strategy of far-right parties, either by accentuating fears that exist, or by literally giving them birth.

We know that anti-Semitism existed beforehand, but the Nazis attached to it many violent and dehumanizing discourses, to justify the extermination of the Jews. Violence was, from then on, justified by the fact that Jewish, gypsy and homosexual populations were dangerous.

The same pattern can be found today in some of the aggressive rhetoric coming from far-right or, more generally, extremist groupuscules. These speeches could lead some to justify violence similar to that of the 40-45 war against these so-called threats to society.

B.R.: The rhetoric is also similar. Both in the Nazi party and in today's far-right parties, we're faced with tribunes who, like Hitler or Goebbels, love monologues. They give speeches that assert truths and create moral panic. On the other hand, all these tribunes are in trouble when they have to debate ideas.

It's much the same today. In an adversarial debate, Donald Trump will, for example, go into conflict, as he did with President Zelenski. Göring, Hitler and Goebbels did exactly the same thing. Sound archives of the Reichstag fire trial have been found in which Göring can be heard going completely out of his depth when put in contradiction with one of the defendants or one of the lawyers.

So these similarities should alert us to the dangers of today's extreme right?

A.T.: Yes. This is the aim of "Coalition 8 mai", created by Ellen De Soete, who realized that, during commemorations, we perpetuate the same gestures, but have often lost the meaning of them. Today, however, there is every reason to fear that the horrors of 40-45 could be repeated. The association wants to raise public awareness of this danger. That's why it has asked the History Department to organize this symposium.

Copyrights (in order of appearance):

• Louise-Marie Danhaive
• Imprimerie clandestine à Liège, 1944 - © Cegesoma
• Madeleine Tasset - copyright: © Collection M. Tasset, Bibliotheca Andana
• Irma Caldow in Solre-sur-Sambre circa 1943-1944 - © Cegesoma
• The kiss on GI September 1944 - © Cegesoma

Romain Waroquier holds a PhD in History and is a postdoctoral researcher at the Pratiques médiévales de l'écrit (PraME) research center at UNamur. Since 2024, and thanks to the patronage of the public utility foundation Institut Moretus Plantin, he has inventoried, identified and analyzed each of the 214 documents that make up the archive deposited at the BUMP by Count René de Brouchoven de Bergeyck de Namur d'Elzée, whose ancestors were Counts of Namur (before 1421) and Lords of Dhuy (today's commune of Éghezée).

By depositing part of his archives at the BUMP, the Count of Brouchoven de Bergeyck has made an important gesture to the scientific world, which will now be able to exploit them and shed light on certain aspects of the seigniorial history of the Namur region in the Middle Ages.

"Alongside some twenty charters documenting the intra-family transmission of the seigneury (1263-1490), the centerpiece of the collection lies in a book or polyptique foncier, a management document in which descriptions of the lands making up the Dhuy seigneury are recorded. This manuscript was written in two phases, the first in 1417 and the second probably around 1489," continues the medievalist. "This type of document is usually found in the case of large ecclesiastical estates". In the context of a secular seigneury, this polyptych has only one comparable equivalent in the Mosan area, the censier of the seigneury of Jauche, dated 1444 and studied by historian Georges Despy. It is therefore a unique document in the province of Namur, but also extremely rare on a wider scale.

"The document's raison d'être raises questions: it's not a censier, because the description of the seigneury is not based on cens (fee paid to the seigneur by the tenants of a piece of land, Editor's note). So it's not a question of taxation. And the historian goes on to give his hypothesis as to the origin of the manuscript: "the possessions making up the seigneury of Dhuy were brought together at the end of the 14th century by Jean de Namur, the youngest son of Count of Namur Guillaume Ier. The seigneury of Dhuy was his personal possession, over which he bought back all rights and possessions between 1390 and 1392, when he was lord of Wienendaele and Renaix, and not destined to rule. When he became lord of the county in 1418, after the death of his brother William II, without an heir, he probably had the assets of his personal seigneury inventoried to avoid it being confused with that of the county estate". In fact, we note that when the County of Namur was ceded to Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, in 1421, the seigneury of Dhuy was excluded from the sale. "This is clearly stipulated in the deed of sale of the county. The seigneury is ceded by Jean de Namur as an apanage (portion of domain granted by the lord, as compensation, to a child excluded from the succession of the title, Editor's note), to his natural son Philippe. It is excluded from the sale because it was Jean's possession before he became Count," concludes Romain Waroquier.

The scientific inventory produced by the researcher will shortly be published by Presses Universitaires de Namur. It will provide a detailed overview not only of the medieval part of the collection, but also of its modern and contemporary portions, which consist mainly of wills and marriage agreements (16th-17th centuries), personal documents and a fine epistolary file dating from the Napoleonic period: "This consists of some twenty letters exchanged between the Count and his son, who joined the Empire's army and died during the Spanish War of Independence (a conflict that pitted Spain and its allies against Napoleon I's France between 1808 and 1814, Editor's note)". Several scientific articles will follow, including a critical edition and contextualization of the famous livre foncier mentioned above. The medieval charters will also shortly be digitized and made accessible to the public on the Neptun portal of the Namur university library.

This article was published in the Fond Namur Université newsletter.

In the photo: Édouard Lecanuet, production assistant at Histovery, Minister Valérie Lescrenier in charge of Tourism and Heritage, Marc de Villenfagne, managing director of the Citadelle of Dinant, and Axel Tixhon, professor in the History Department at UNamur, inaugurate the HistoPad, a 3D reconstruction tool of the history of the Citadelle of Dinant. A project scientifically validated by Axel Tixhon.

Thanks to an interactive tablet christened HistoPad, the public can explore the site like never before. At various points along the route, visitors discover historical scenes recreated in 3D, supported by rigorous documentation and faithful reproductions of period settings, costumes and objects.

Three key periods have been selected for this immersion:

• 1821, Dutch period and construction of the fort
• 1832, Belgian period during which the Citadelle becomes a military prison
• 1914, during the First World War, the site is the scene of confrontations

Professor Tixhon was involved in all stages of the project, as a member of the scientific committee. Initially, he highlighted historically interesting events and traces still visible today, such as artillery pieces, an old kitchen or a bakery. It also provided Histovery with relevant and reliable documentation.

His expertise has made it possible to assess the historical accuracy of the reconstructions.

Some locations have also been virtually recreated from ancient iconographic sources, such as an ingenious wooden mechanism that once carried water from the Meuse to the fortress.

Histovery, already known for its achievements at the Château de Chambord, the Palais de papes in Avignon and Fort Alamo in the USA, here signs a Walloon first, blending heritage, innovation and scientific rigor. A success that demonstrates, once again, the relevance of dialogue between experts at the University of Namur and socio-economic and cultural players.

In the picture, from left to right: (top) Pierre Louette, Director of the Physics Department; François Briard, Head of the Science Portal Group (CERN); Julien Colaux, IBA specialist, physics researcher; Boris Hespeels, biology researcher; Alexandre Mayer, physics researcher; Anne-Catherine Heuskin, physics and biophysics researcher. (bottom) André Füzfa, astrophysicist and mathematics researcher; Serge Mathot, Applied Physicist (CERN) and Michaël Lobet, physics researcher.

The love affair between CERN and UNamur goes back a long way. CERN's accelerator complex and experimental program are very different and much larger than those of UNamur's Physics Department, but the fields in which the two institutions work have much in common.

In addition, both guests have a personal history with UNamur. The Physics Department was pleased to welcome Serge Mathot, Referent Applied Physicist (CERN) and alumni of the UNamur Physics Department (1992), as well as François Briard, Group Leader Science Portal (CERN), and alumni of the UNamur Faculty of Computer Science (1994).

The activities began with a meeting between the guests, Rector Annick Castiaux, Vice-Rector for Research Carine Michiels, Physics Department Director Pierre Louette and several other members of the Physics and Biology Department. After a general presentation of the University, the participants pointed out the missions shared by both institutions: research and the transfer of technology and knowledge, service to society, scientific popularization and education and training.

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Physics lunch - CERN presentation

The physics lunch is the monthly meeting between students and members of the physics department and a professional, alumni or not, coming to explain his or her background and what he or she does on a daily basis as a physicist.

During this meeting, attended by around 80 people, François Briard and Serge Mathot presented CERN, the world's largest laboratory for particle physics. CERN's mission is to understand the most elementary particles and the laws of our universe.

At the end of the seminar, the students came away with stars in their eyes. Indeed, opportunities for internships or even first jobs at CERN are possible for physicists but also in many other fields.

Some internship programs at CERN are particularly well suited to the needs of young Belgian students.

The vast majority of physicists working with CERN (over 13,000) are in fact sent to CERN for varying periods of time by their employing national research institutes. CERN offers an exceptional opportunity to develop international experience under excellent conditions, in an environment that is unique in the world! What an inspiration for our young students!

The projet d'Action Recherche Concertée (ARC) PHOENIX aims to renew our understanding of medieval parchments and ancient coins. Artificial intelligence will be exploited to analyze the data generated by material characterization.

This joint study between the Department of Physics and the Namur Institute of Structured Matter (NISM) and the Department of History and the Institut Patrimoines, Transmissions, Héritages (PaTHs) will address questions relating to the production chain and use of these objects and materials in past societies.

At the same time, Serge Mathot presented a seminar in heritage science attended by some 50 people. In particular, he presented his research and the brand-new ELISA accelerator: a miniaturized gas pedal capable of delivering a 2 MeV proton beam used to perform real measurements at the Science Portal.

Having the opportunity to exchange views with François Briard, Group Leader of the CERN Science Portal is a rare opportunity. Comparing outreach activities has opened up new avenues, discovering and sharing approaches, assessing what works and what doesn't, depending on the target audience. A highly satisfying enrichment for the members present from Confluent des Savoirs (CDS), the University of Namur's research outreach and dissemination service.

Professor Anne-Catherine Heuskin and Dr. Boris Hespeels are currently working on the BEBLOB project, a Belspo project with ESA support, as part of the UNIVERSEH (European Space University for Earth and Humanity) alliance. They are particularly interested in its astonishing ability to withstand high doses of radiation.

Anne-Catherine Heuskin also works in radiobiology. Particles are used to irradiate cancerous cells in order to destroy their genetic material and prevent them from proliferating: this is the basis of radiotherapy and proton therapy.

The meeting confirmed the willingness of FaSEF and UNamur to get involved in coordinating the Belgian National Teacher Programme in French-speaking Belgium, which CERN intends to relaunch in 2026. Consideration was also given to other avenues for teacher training, such as CERN's forthcoming involvement in the "Salle des Pros", the training venue for the various players involved in teacher training at UNamur.

The TRAKK is Namur's creative hub supported by 3 complementary partners in the field: BEP, KIKK, and UNamur. In addition to the venue, François Briard was able to visit the ProtoLab , which bridges the gap between ideas and industry by being a decentralized research and development hub accessible to SMEs and project leaders by offering advanced support in prototyping products or services.

Graduating in law and information technology management (DGTIC) in 1994 after his bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science in 1993, François Briard works at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, the world's largest particle physics laboratory.

During his school career, which was 100% at UNamur, he was vice-president of the Régionale namuroise and student delegate during his years as a candidate in economic and social sciences, computer science option.

Thanks to the multidisciplinary training provided at UNamur, he was able to seize several opportunities to redirect his career at CERN, where he was an information systems engineer from 1994 and then, from 2014, redirected his career until he became Group Leader of the Science Portal, which is CERN's general public communications center.

Serge Mathot obtained his doctorate in applied sciences from UNamur in 1992, following his bachelor's degree in physical sciences in 1985.

He then carried out a post-doctorate at the Joint Research Center (EU science hub) in Geel, which aims to bring together multidisciplinary skills to develop new measurement methods and tools such as reference materials.

He perfected his expertise in physical metallurgy before joining CERN in 1995 as a Referent Applied Physicist. He has worked on numerous research projects (CLOUD, MACHINA, ELISA...) and developed numerous parts for the manufacture of CERN's gas pedals.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world's largest and most prestigious scientific laboratories. Its vocation is fundamental physics, the discovery of the constituents and laws of the Universe. It uses highly complex scientific instruments to probe the ultimate constituents of matter: the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists understand the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle gas pedals and detectors. Gas pedals carry beams of particles at high energies to collide with other beams or fixed targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, CERN is located on either side of the French-Swiss border, near Geneva. It was one of the first organizations on a European scale and today has 25 member states, including Belgium.