Archives of Louise de Landsheere

  • Access and consultation: The fonds Louise de Landsheere can be accessed during the opening hours of the reading room. Its content is freely accessible. Reservation.
  • Reproduction:  The content of the fonds can be reproduced freely in our reading room. For any information about requests for a document reproduction carried out by CegeSoma staff can be found here.
  • Research instruments: Inventory AA667

Archive fonds description:

The archives of Louise de Landsheere were transferred to CegeSoma shortly after her death in 1989. The archive fonds holds many documents about organisations taking care of war victims, and about the history of the Scond World War, and personal documents including press clippings.

Louise Edmée de Landsheere was born in Brussels on 15 October 1908. As a young girl, she received a formal education and later studied at the commerce college of Leuven. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, she got engaged in the resistance. As an intelligence and action agent she was promoted to deputy chief of the Zéro service. She also became deputy director of La Libre Belgique-Peter Pan at the beginning of the war, until the underground newspaper was shut down by the German occupant and condemned. Louise de Landsheere was then deported to Germany where she was detained for almost three years in women camps (among which Anrath, Jauer and Aichach).

After her liberation on 28 April 1945, Louise de Landsheere was given the status of resistant. She was also awarded a number of national orders and other distinctions. Due to her harsh internment conditions, she was given that status of disabled veteran. At professional level, she became an editor of La Cité Nouvelle (1946) and correspondant for newspapers Vers l'Avenir and La Métropole (1947-1955). As from 1950, she was editor of the summary records of the Senate. After a first promotion in 1965, she was appointed as honorary sub-director of this service in January 1972.

Louise de Landsheere was also a member of several patriotic associations among which the Amicale des Femmes des Camp and the Fonds social des Prisonniers politiques, Ascendants, Veuves et Orphelins. She is also very well known for being a key figure of the Union des Services de Renseignements et d'Action (USRA). Indeed, from section VII of the Brabant department, she was promoted to the national level in the early nineteen sixties. In 1962, she became secretary-general and held this position until shortly before her death. Through the Comité de Contact des Associations patriotiques (CCAP), of which USRA is a member, she had a certain influence of the decisions taken there. And as a representative of USRA, delegate of CCAP, Louise de Landsheere held a seat in various commissions, among which the Commission permanente chargée du règlement du contentieux des Victimes de la guerre (CP). Finally, as from 1972, she was a member of the scientific committee of CegeSoma and has left a mark on the life of the centre through her research. She remained an active member until shortly before her demise on 18 August 1989.

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