OPERATIE PAPEGAAI

Ghent, 1944. A city occupied by German soldiers, where the underground resistance grows quietly but with increasing strength. Freedom of the press disappears, and political opponents and alleged enemies are systematically silenced.

Albert Mélot was a Belgian resistance fighter. After a failed attempt to free King Leopold III, he was sent to Ghent to join the Secret Army. Shortly after D-Day, he was betrayed and arrested by the German Feldgendarmerie, after which he was imprisoned in De Nieuwe Wandeling. The Ghent resistance received orders from London to free Mélot. During a transfer from an interrogation site at the Kouter, he was spectacularly liberated in the Papegaaistraat. His radio operator, Albert Wouters, was left behind, while another secret agent, Albert Deweer, was still imprisoned in that same facility at the time.

The history of the 1930s and 1940s shows us that democracy rarely disappears in a single blow, but is gradually eroded, step by step. A confronting mirror that we must continue to hold up to ourselves today. Operation Papegaai tells the true story of three young men in their twenties who, at great personal risk, fought for freedom and democracy, so that history would never repeat itself.