Aloïs Gerlo

Aloïs Gerlo grew up on the banks of the Scheldt in Baasrode, in a modest, middle-class family of four sons. His liberal father died young in 1925. In 1936, Aloïs obtained his degree in classical philology, after which he became a teacher in the atheneum of Vilvoorde and obtained his PhD in literature and philosophy. In 1938 and 1939, he travelled to Paris on honeymoon and to study.

His circle in Vilvoorde consisted of communist and socialist intellectuals, and he was a member of the Brussels Comité de Vigilance des Intellectuels Antifascistes. The New Order of 1940 was incompatible with his deep-rooted antifascist and Marxist background. He refused to accept the dissolution of the Belgian Workers’ Party (BWP) by Hendrik De Man and immediately joined the Communist Party, the only way he could see to offer active resistance. Aloïs refuted the propaganda of the occupier. Following the pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, in 1941 he established a branch of the Onafhankelijkheidsfront (Independence Front, OF) in Vilvoorde. He later became editor of the OF newspaper Vrijheid (Freedom) from 1943-1944. After the war, he described the underground press as the most important tool in the fight against the occupier. In Belgium, a range of clandestine newspapers emerged to motivate the people.

For security reasons, work in the underground organisations was carried out in separate cells, according to strict rules. With his iron discipline and commitment, Aloïs climbed up the ranks within the resistance. He went into hiding in February 1944, and in May he became national deputy secretary of the OF. He was given control of the Flemish editions of the underground press and remained editor of the newspaper Front after the war. He continued to focus on research and political activism. He fought for the Flemish Movement and was the first to advocate federalism at the General Flemish Congress in 1947. From 1948-1954, he took part in the communist-inspired Peace Movement. When Stalin’s abuses came to light in 1956 and the Soviet Union suppressed the Hungarian uprising, Aloïs returned to the Belgian Socialist Party.

From September 1941, he taught at the Atheneum in Etterbeek, a position he continued after liberation until, in 1956, he became a lecturer at the Université libre de Bruxelles. His scientific work, which he never neglected despite his busy public life, focused on humanism in the Low Countries in the 16th and 17th centuries, Neo-Latin literature and pedagogy. In 1969, he became the first rector of the newly established Flemish University of Brussels. Throughout his career, he wholeheartedly defended freedom of speech, free enquiry and the free exchange of documents and ideas. 

Sources

• Gerlo, Aloïs. Noch hoveling, noch gunsteling. Een levensverhaal. Kapellen: Pelckmans, 1989.
• Verhulst, Adriaan. Aloïs Gerlo. Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 2023. 
• Em. prof. dr. Marcel Hebbelinck over rector Aloïs Gerlo, 2020. Via: https://www.vub.be/nl. 
• CegeSoma, Bestand Gewapende Weerstand, persoonsdossier Aloïs Gerlo (29.01.1915).