Resistance for freedom
This site commemorates the 150,000 Belgians who resisted the Nazi occupation during World War II. Among them were men and women from all walks of life - hairdressers, barbers, engineers, artists, miners, doctors. Students, researchers, and professors too, joined the resistance. On the 25th of November 1941, the ULB became the only Belgian university to close its doors, protesting German interference in the appointment of its professors. Free research had become difficult with increasing pressure from the occupier who saw in the ULB a space ‘where liberalism and Marxism could spread their hatred for fascism and national socialism’. Despite these challenges, teaching staff and students found ways to continue giving and attending classes. Approximately thirty among them established the sabotage group ‘Groupe G’. The resistance paid a high price. At least 15,000 Belgians were murdered, and many returned broken from the concentration camps.
Remco Campert once wrote that ‘resistance begins by questioning oneself, and then posing that same question to another’. The people on this wall did not only challenge fascism, they also risked their lives for the sake of liberty. The world needed them.