G-Group & Resistance - Oscar Sakx & Victor F. Sakx

G-Group & Resistance – Oscar Sakx & Victor F. Sakx

The Resistance in World War II is the collective term for all those individuals and groups who resisted the German occupation.

There was a passive resistance movement, which was limited to organizing strikes.

The active resistance and Group G ( General Group for Intelligence & Sabotage ) on the other hand can be credited with the following actions:

Passing on intelligence for the benefit of Great Britain (the main intelligence nets were: "Cleveland" or "Clarence" run by Walthère Dewé, "Zero" run by Fernand Kerkhofs, "Luc" run by Georges Leclercq, "Sabot" run by P. Bouriez, and "Mill" run by Adrien Marquet);
Facilitating the escape of 1,600 British pilots and aircrew, often wounded, who had been shot down;
Killing collaborators;
Running a clandestine press (650 different magazines culminating in the publication of the "Fake Soir" on 9 November 1943) to keep up the morale of the population;
Sabotaging German supply lines (especially by Group "G" of the ULB engineering faculty) before and after the Normandy landings;
Carrying out acts of sabotage such as cutting telephone wires, electricity supplies and rail traffic, as well as disrupting industrial production with "La Grande Coupure" being one of the most spectacular acts of resistance;
Attacking Train Convoy no. XX, which was taking mainly Jews from the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen to Auschwitz;
Fighting the German rear-guard during the liberation and guiding British units so that were able to capture of the Port of Antwerp virtually intact;
Apprehending and guarding collaborators after the Liberation.

Some of these actions were followed by severe reprisals by the Germans, as happened in Meensel-Kiezegem. The resistance in Hasselt is illustrative of the actions of Belgian resistance fighters.

Victims

In Belgium alone, 16,200 people ended up paying for their resistance with their lives.

G-Group Intelligence AG

My grandfather, Oscar Sakx, was a resistance member and agent of Group G. The fierce battle he waged against the Nazi regime during which he and his companions saved thousands of people from the horror of the concentration camps left him with a serious heart condition in 1946.

He died of this heart condition in 1952 at the age of 62. I never knew him. I was born 10 years later, in 1962.

Bringing Group G back to life is something I do to remember the victims and to support their families in the suffering they still experience every day.

Of course I also do this to honour and commemorate my grandfather Oscar Sakx. Furthermore the establishment of such an organisation now is desperately needed because anti-Semitism, racism, abuse and extremism or in general terms "The Nazi Conviction" is more present now than it has ever been since the end of the war.

Victor F. Sakx, President "G-Group"

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