ABSTRACT
The resistance fighters were needed to solidly establish Austria’s position as a “victim of German Nazi fascism” and to thereby receive more favorable treatment from the Allies (the Antifascist Declaration of Principles of the “founding fathers” of the Second Republic). The choice of Belgium as an area of investigation for this inquiry into women in resistance presents us with a small land of exile that has received little notice. Belgium was neither politically nor culturally a major center of Austrian emigration—surely another reason for its neglect by Austrian historians. Belgium became a land of exile for those whose means of escape, both in the form of financial resources and human relationships, were either quite limited or nonexistent. Belgium became the country of asylum for emigrants possessing meager financial means and no personal contacts, which made the journey to a more distant and more secure land of exile an impossibility.
