Agent for the Resistance

When Nazi Germany began bearing down on Europe in the late 1930s, Herman Bodson was a student intellectual and pacifist at the University of Brussels. As the reality of eventual invasion sank into his soul, however, his passion for freedom overcame his pacifism, and with a group of friends he entered the resistance and five years of dangerous work as, in his words, "a fighter and a killer." With his background in chemistry, Bodson became an expert in explosives and sabotage, leading a group of fighters that below up military trains and installations (including a bridge whose destruction killed some six hundred German soldiers), cut German communication lines, and rescued downed American fliers. He also served as an aide to an American military doctor during the Battle of the Bulge. Bodson concludes his account of freedom fighting by telling of his role in bringing traitors to justice at war's end. This story of the Belgian underground provides insight into the intellectual and emotional responses that have led to the birth of such movements in many nations.