About

A Belgian premiere

Resistance in Belgium is the fruit of a pilot project of the State Archives in Belgium carried out by CegeSoma. This platform will eventually enable research about more than 150,000 persons who were involved in one form or another in the different resistance activities led in Belgium during the Second World War. The database contains structured and multilingual data that can be read be humans and machines and allows for simple search queries as well as advanced transversal research in a plenitude of information on the basis of a name, a date of birth, an address or the denomination of a resistance movement or network. It is geared towards the large public as well as seasoned researchers and historians, and intended as a complement to the topical portal site Belgium WWII about the Second World War in Belgium.

Thousands of data

The platform houses thousands of data on individuals either known to be deceased or born more than 100 years ago, and shall be continuously fed through supply and verification of the remaining data. Currently, the platform contains data derived from more than 42 000 individual files and records opened by the State Security Service (Sûreté de l’Etat/Staatsveiligheid), related to the Intelligence and Action Services.

Data from the following records will also be added:

• more than 25 000 personal files about the Status of resistance fighter of the underground press conserved by the Archives Service for War Victims, and around 15 000 preparatory files from Union de la presse clandestine and Front de l’Indépendance.
• more than 35 000 personal files opened by armed resistance movements for the recognition of their members as armed resistants, conserved by CegeSoma.
• more than 44 000 personal files about the Status of civil resitance fighter conserved by the Archives Service for War Victims, and more than 5 000 forms filed by the Front de l’Indépendance.
• ~140 000 personal files of the Office de la Résistance about the Status of armed resistance fighter conserved by the National Archives.

A long-term collaboration project

The project was launched in spring 2021 and is coordinated by Anne Chardonnens and Fabrice Maerten (CegeSoma); it is based on the work started in autumn 2019 for the publication Papy était-il un héros ?

Resistance in Belgium is the fruit of a multidisciplinary team assisted by several volunteers, trainees and student workers as well as personnel of CegeSoma. See the dedicated project webpage for further information.

Infrastructure et maintenance

The infrastructure that hosts the data is based on the Wikibase open source software. The configuration and technical maintenance are carried out internally by Peter Van Overveldt and Anne Chardonnens at the State Archives.

The homepage was designed in collaboration with Professional Wiki. The source code is openly available on GitHub, with the aim of fostering collaborative efforts and shared resources within the community.

Access to data

Open and re-useable data are at the core of this project. They are saved in a structured format that can be accessed in different ways; for more details on accessing the data, click here.

Help

Questions about Resistance in Belgium? Do you need assistance for your research? Please consult the FAQ for further information. A number of predefined search queries are also at your disposal: Link .

Terms of use

Would you like to re-use or publish contents from Resistance in Belgium? Please consult our practical information page to make sure to re-use contents in the correct manner.

Contributors

We would like to thank everyone involved in the data feeding and processing work:

Sirine Aki, Maximilian Amerstorfer, Stef De Baedts, Martin Bagnoud, Eléonore Bastogne, Roland Baumann, Marie Bessière, Dora Beullens, Stella Black, Johannes Bogaert, Benjamin Bohrer, Marguerite de Brouwer, Zeyneb Buchal, Bernard Burton, Marie-Hélène Calicis, Moritz Clodi, Jonathan D'Haese, Hedwig Degelaen, Emile Dejehansart, Marie Delvaux, Yves Delvaux, Matthias Domsgen, Julie Douley, Mathilde Fabri, Clémentine Flament, Paula Fraunbaum, Samuel Frieling, Francesca Giuffredi, Julian Hagenauer, Antonia Heidrich, Nora Kaltenböck, Hilde Keppens, Luc Ketels, Florian Kössler, Monica Lacanale, Zakaria Lamarti, Francis Lambrechts, Adil Lasouad, Jonas Leduc, Fouzia Mahi, Darren Manouvrier, Yvette Martin, Thomas Masurel, Mohamed Taieb Mokkadem, Pierre Mortier, Felix Oberhüber, Noah Plattner, Maximilian Pröll, Hasna Richa, Cécilia Saerens, Ilias Sari, Julika Schulze, Clemens Schönborn-Buchheim, Jula Skomski, Martin Van Splunter, Alexandre Stroinovsky, Jacques Sweers, Nico Theunissen, Felix Thurner, Kathleen Vandenberghe, Sarah Vanreybrouck, Marc De Win, Milena Zimmerman.

Follow-up committee

Anne Chardonnens, Annelies Coenen, Rolande Depoortere, Gert De Prins, Gertjan Desmet, Paul Drossens, Chantal Kesteloot, Yves Lardinois, Fabrice Maerten, Alexandra Matagne, Eddy Put, Johan Van Der Eycken.

Communication

Isabelle Ponteville, Chloé Brault.

Translations

Dora Beullens, Alexander Hezel, Pascal Neckebrouck.

Coordination

Anne Chardonnens, Fabrice Maerten.

Publications

• General articles about the Resistance in Belgium and portraits of resistance fighters can be found on the patform Belgium WWII.

• For a global overview about the Resistance, its remembrance culture, the national recognition status and archive fonds with personal files about resistance fighters see: Fabrice Maerten (dir.), Papy était-il un héros ? Sur les traces des hommes et des femmes dans la Résistance pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Tielt, 2020, 352 p. [out of print].

• For a bibliography about the Resistance in Belgium see: Resistance in Belgium (1940-1944). Selected bibliography.

• For a critical assessment of the sources about the Resistance see Fabrice Maerten, "Les archives de et sur la Résistance. Par-delà leurs limites, une richesse propice à de nouvelles perspectives" , in Revue belge d'histoire contemporaine/Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, 2022, no. 1-2, p. 226-240, available online.

• The descriptions of most underground journals published between 1940 and 1944 in Belgium can be found in the following guide: José Gotovitch (dir.), Guide de la presse clandestine de Belgique, Bruxelles, Centre de Recherches et d'Etudes historiques de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, 1991, 214 p., available online (in French). A digitised version of some of these journals can be found on The Belgian War Press.

Contact

For content-related questions, technical aspects or if you would like to participate in the projet as a trainee/volunteer, please contact us.