Gilberte Borgers is a staunch anti-fascist, a communist activist and a leader of the women’s movement within the Flemish Communist Party. At the start of the occupation, she was living in Hoboken with her two children. Her husband, François Lepomme, was killed in action during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. From the outset of the occupation, Gilberte distributed communist propaganda. In May 1941, she organised women’s demonstrations calling for improved food supplies. The largest demonstration brought together 800 women on 27 and 28 May in Hoboken.
In June 1941, she went into hiding in West Flanders, but continued her activities: she distributed underground publications, recruited for the Armed Partisans and worked as a courier for the leadership of the underground Communist Party. Gilberte is betrayed at her hiding place in Umbeke and arrested on 14 April 1942. She is sentenced to death by a German court for communist propaganda and beheaded on 28 April 1944 in Katowice, Poland. She is 32 years old.
