A photo of the Abeels family, of Ganshoren, Belgium, circa 1932. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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During the two months in 1944 that U.S. airmen Jerry Sorensen and Mac McManaman were hidden in the Abeels family home, they only went out once, to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart a couple of blocks away. On the outing, from left to right, were Sorensen, Clementine Abeels, Jenny Abeels and MacManaman. In Nazi-occupied Brussels, if the Americans had been discovered it could have meant death for them and the Abeels family. (Abeels family photo, courtesy Jerry Sheridan)
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The two rescued aviators were treated as family by the Abeels. They called Clementine Abeels "Mama" and Jerry Sorensen told her he hoped to stay with the family until the war was over. Here they are in the Abeels' backyard, from left to right, Mac McManaman, Jenny Abeels, Clementine Abeels, Sorensen. (Abeels family photo, courtesy Jerry Sheridan)
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Jenny Abeels points to photos of U.S. aviators Jerry Sorensen and Mac McManaman, whose presence in the Abeels family home in 1944 she calls the best time of her life. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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Jenny Abeels looks at photos of her 20-year-old brother, Roger, and U.S. Staff Sgt. Jerry Sorensen, activisits in the Belgian resistance who were killed by a German grenade on Sept. 3, 1944, as the Allies rolled into Brussels. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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Jenny Abeels reads the last letter her family received from her brother, Roger, dated Aug. 24, 1944, 10 days before he was killed by retreating Nazis as the Allies liberated Brussels. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who led the Allies' D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, would later send the Abeels family a presidential memo thanking them for sheltering downed U.S. airmen Jerry Sorensen and Mac McManaman, at considerable risk to themselves.
(Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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Staff Sgt. Jerry Sorensen, enshrined in Jenny Abeels' living room. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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Jenny Abeels reminisces about the days when a trapeze in her family's attic was used for gymnastics by U.S. airmen Jerry Sorensen and Mac McManaman, who were hidden by the Abeels in 1944. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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The town of Ganshoren named streets after Staff Sgt. Jerry Sorensen and Roger Abeels, who fought the Nazi occupation as part of the Belgian Secret Army. Sorensen posthumously received five medals of honor from the Belgian government. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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The "isolated grave" of Staff Sgt. Gerald "Jerry" Sorensen in the cemetery of Ganshoren, the Belgian community where he was sheltered from Nazis after being shot down in May 1944. Next to him lies his close friend, Belgian Roger Abeels, who died with him in a German grenade attack, and between them, Roger's father Arthur, who agreed to protect Jerry in his home. The U.S. government lost track of the grave for almost six decades, until it was rediscovered by the American Overseas Memorial Day Association less than a decade ago. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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Jenny Abeels was pleased at the first large Memorial Day commemoration, held May 31, 2010, for Staff Sgt. Jerry Sorensen since his widow visited Belgium in 1947. (Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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Jenny Abeels participates in a Memorial Day ceremony in 2010 for U.S. Staff Sgt Jerry Sorensen. On her right is Cesar Vanherreweghen, who fought in the Belgian resistance with Jenny's brother Roger and U.S. Staff Sgt. Jerry Sorensen.
(Teri Schultz/GlobalPost)
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