The return of the demobilised soldier

After the surrender, some of the Belgian soldiers — notably those who were not taken into captivity, or who were quickly released (above all Flemings, under the Flamenpolitik) — returned home. Demobilised, you found again an occupied country, a family tried by the exodus, a life to rebuild under the German boot.

The return raised the question of what attitude to adopt. To resume a normal life — work, family — while accommodating the occupation, out of weariness and necessity. To refuse the occupation and seek to join the forces continuing the struggle (reaching England via France and Spain to enlist in the Free Belgian Forces). Or to remain in expectation, neither collaboration nor resistance, while waiting to see how the war would turn.

Exhaustion, the sense of humiliation at the defeat, the uncertainty about the future weighed heavily. Should one turn the page and survive, or refuse fate and set off to fight again, at the cost of a new and dangerous exile? Many former combatants of 1940 faced this choice in the silence of the occupied summer.