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Civilian Disobedience Medal

War service medal of the Kingdom of Belgium

Field	Value
name	Civilian Disobedience Medal
image	Médaille du Réfractaire Belgique Avers.jpg
image_size	150px
caption	Civilian Disobedience Medal(obverse)
presenter	[[File:Flag of Belgium.svg	18px]] Kingdom of Belgium
type	War medal
eligibility	Belgian citizens
awarded_for	Refusal to help the German war effort during World War 2
status	No longer awarded
established	12 February 1951
image2	[[File:Médaille du Réfractaire Belgique Revers.jpg	150px]]
caption2	Reverse of the Civilian Disobedience Medal

The Civilian Disobedience Medal (, ) was a war service medal of the Kingdom of Belgium established by royal decree on 12 February 1951 and awarded to Belgian citizens refusing to support the German war effort during the Second World War.

Award description

The Civilian Disobedience Medal was a circular 37mm in diameter bronze medal. Its obverse bore the relief torso of a civilian male with his arms crossed and his face turned away to the right in defiance. The reverse bore the relief inscription on two lines in Latin "FORSAN VICTI NUNQUAM SERVI" roughly translating into "MAYBE DEFEATED BUT NEVER SLAVES". The years "1940-1945" are inscribed along the reverse's upper circumference.

The medal was suspended by a ring through a suspension loop to a 38mm wide silk moiré green ribbon with two 3mm wide longitudinal stripes located 1cm from the edges, the stripes came in three different colours depending on the reason for bestowal:

yellow stripes indicated refusal to serve in the German armed forces;
white stripes indicated refusal to work for the Germans;
red stripes indicated refusal to return to Germany by a forced labourer following leave at home in Belgium.

References

Royal Decree of 12 February 1951 creating the Médaille du Réfractaire

Other sources

Quinot H., 1950, Recueil illustré des décorations belges et congolaises, 4e Edition. (Hasselt)
Cornet R., 1982, Recueil des dispositions légales et réglementaires régissant les ordres nationaux belges. 2e Ed. N.pl., (Brussels)
Borné A.C., 1985, Distinctions honorifiques de la Belgique, 1830-1985 (Brussels)

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

orders,-decorations,-and-medals-of-belgium awards-established-in-1951 1951-establishments-in-belgium

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