King Leopold III Croix de Guerre 1940-1945 medal, ribbon, and gold palm citation awarded to a Belgian resistance fighter

Roger Leon Francois was born on July 23, 1914, in Ledeberg, Belgium. He served in the Belgian Army throughout the 1930s. He was given leave from the Congo to marry Johanna F. on March 12, 1936. In May 1940, Germany invaded and occupied Belgium. Roger became a member of OMBR [Organisation Militaire Belge de Résistance], the Belgian Military Resistance Organization. He participated in sabotage actions and actively assisted Jews to go into hiding to avoid deportation by the German authorities. He was arrested in Brussels by the Germans in 1942, and deported to Flossenbürg, than Buchenwald concentration camp. His prisoner number was 60481. He may have been released on June 17, 1944, due to ill health pursuant to a prisoner release agreement negotiated by the Dutch. Buchenwald was liberated by American troops in April 1945, not long before the war ended in May. Roger was honored with multiple awards and medals for his wartime service by the Belgian government. Roger resumed his service in the Belgian Army. He worked as a photographer for the Belgian embassy, as a cryptographer for NATO, and was stationed in the Belgian Embassy in Washington DC for three years. In 1960, he retired from the military after twenty years. He, his wife, and their four children, two boys and two girls, remained in the US. Roger was a dedicated employee of the Piedmont School of the Wilson Boulevard Christian Church. Roger, age 79, died in 1993.