Roger De Wispelaer was born in 1926, probably in Ostend, Belgium. He grew up in the city’s sailors’ quarter and was only fourteen when the Second World War began. In August 1942, at the age of fifteen, he was recruited by the Secret Army and became an active young resistance fighter, recruiting members, carrying messages and gathering military intelligence. Arrested by the Gestapo on 7 March 1944, shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he was imprisoned in Ghent, sentenced in Bruges for “aiding the enemy”, and deported to Germany. He was held in Anrath juvenile prison and later in Wolfenbüttel, where he performed forced labour and was seriously injured during rubble-clearing work in Braunschweig. He was liberated on 11 April 1945 and returned to Belgium. He died in Bruges on 7 August 1982.
