Janine de Greef, Belgian who helped smuggle downed Allied airmen to safety, dies at 95

[DFW]

5. I had a friend like that.

He died of lung cancer about 25 years ago, but he would have been over 90 now, too. Although he never smoked, everyone in his office did, and no pleas to stop were heeded.

Though he spoke nothing but French, and lived all his life in Paris, his ancestors were Dutch, and his family name was Looren. Tall and blond, he looked like the Aryan ideal, and the Nazi occupiers never suspected that this 14 year old school kid was, at night, firing machine guns at them as a member of the resistance. Though he was never caught, like most of those who had harrowing combat experiences, he never talked of his days with the French Résistance, and I found out about his expoits from his friends, some of whom had done similar things, but only recounted the adventures of others, never their own.