ABOUT THIS BLOG

This blog is to acquaint you with Alber Folens. He was born in Bissegem, in Flanders, in the artificial state of Belgium, in the middle of WWI. He grew up to feel patriotic towards his homeland, Flanders, rather than to the Belgian state. That state had attempted since its foundation to suppress his people, their culture and their language. Thankfully it has not succeeded but that was not for want of trying.

Unfortunately his country was occupied by the Germans in both WWI and WWII. They promised some form of independence if they won the war and as a result many Flemings collaborated with them during both wars, and more particularly WWII. This was more the case at the beginning of WWII but many Flemings became disillusioned with the Germans when the extent of their atrocities and in particular their attempt to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth became clear.

Strange to report, Albert ended up in the German military by pure accident and by then it was difficult to exit safely. He did get out of the frontline military before he had a chance to take up arms against anybody when his ulcers started acting up. He was repatriated to Brussels and assigned to the Sicherheitsdienst as a translator. They initially wanted him to be an interpreter for the Gestapo, but he managed to talk his way out of that.

While ostensibly working for the Germans, he was actually assisting the Belgian Resistance and also mitigating the effects of the occupation on Flemish anti-German authors who but for him would likely have ended up in concentration camps or worse, as happened in other occupied territories.

At the end of the war he got no credit for this and was sentenced to ten years detention and his civil rights were removed. After a year of prison he managed to escape to Ireland where with his wife he lived in poverty for a number of years until he qualifed there as a teacher and got a permanent job. He went from there to setting up an educational publishers to remedy the various defects he had found in the Irish education system of that time. Fortunately his business thrived.

He died in 2003 and shortly afterwards his reputation was taken from him in a scurrilous RTÉ documentary which, without a shred of evidence, cast him as a brutal Nazi war criminal. That wrong has not been righted to this day so I feel a compulsion to tell his story.

I am a former pupil of his who stood by him at the time of his public vilification. I'm sure he'd have every confidence in my judgement in presenting this blog in his honour and vindication.