BRUSSELS, Belgium — Countess Andree De Jongh, who set up an escape route that helped hundreds of British airmen flee the Nazi occupation of Belgium during World War II, has died. She was 90.
De Jongh died Saturday, a former resistance organization said. No cause of death was given.
De Jongh, a nurse, helped found the Comet Line escape route while still in her 20s. After her arrest in 1943, she survived German camps before being liberated at the end of the war.
"She was driven by humanitarian conscience," historian Etienne Verhoeyen told VRT network. "She stood out because she could not be deterred and because she was a woman."
The escape route, known as Comete in French, was set up in 1940 to allow downed British airmen to return home and escape German imprisonment. The route went through Belgium, occupied France and over the Pyrenees into Spain's Basque country.
"We accepted that we could be arrested. It was our job," she said years ago. "We didn't say, 'If we get arrested,' we said, 'When we get arrested.' "
By the time she was arrested, she had already brought 118 people, including 80 downed pilots, to safety. The Comet Line itself rescued more than 700 pilots, according to verzet.org, a Web site for ex-resistance fights.
De Jongh was made countess in 1985.
Countess Andrée de Jongh, who as a young nurse founded the Comet Line, an escape route for Allied airmen during World War II, died Saturday in Brussels at the age of 90. The Comet Line went from Brussels to the Pyrenees through France to the British consulate in Madrid and on to Gibraltar. Andrée de Jongh and her father Frédéric De Jongh organised the escape line, which helped more than 700 airmen to escape Nazi-occupied Belgium. Andrée herself accompanied 118 of them before she was arrested by the Gestapo.

The Gestapo captured Frédéric de Jongh in June 1943 and later executed him. Many other members of the Comet Line were also captured and 23 in all were executed. Andrée was captured in January 1944. Unwilling to believe she could have organised the network herself, the Gestapo let her live. She was sent first to Fresnes prison in Paris and eventually to Ravensbrück concentration camp and Mauthausen concentration camp. She was liberated by the advancing Allied troops in April 1945. "We accepted that we could be arrested. It was our job," she said later. "We didn't say 'if we get arrested,' we said 'when we get arrested.'" The Comet Line inspired the BBC drama series Secret Army.

Andrée de Jongh was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom and the George Medal by the late King George VI of the United Kingdom. She was also granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Belgian Army. Later, she was granted the title of countess by the late King Baudouin of Belgium in 1985.