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89 EW IN OTHER NEWS He later trained as an ophthal- mologist and joined the Belgium military. In late October 1940, after he was arrested and released, he made the decision to volunteer with the Belgian resistance. His ophthalmic practice became the site of a mail drop for clandestine packages. "Every few weeks a Flemish- speaking 'patient' would make an appointment and bring along a brown satchel filled with secret documents that the ophthalmolo- gist hid in the thick ivy on the wall at the rear of the property until [Anselme] Vernieuwe [an air force colleague who enlisted Dr. Schepens in the underground] could retrieve it," Ms. Ostrum wrote. In April 1942, a mole in the Gestapo office alerted Mr. Vernieuwe and Dr. Schepens that the Gestapo, the German secret po- lice, was watching their activities. They fled to France. Cyrille Pomerantzeff, a successful business- man and friend, helped Dr. Schep- ens get a false French identify card, a new name, and a job as a traveling salesman. Together, Mr. Vernieuwe and Dr. Schepens scouted the West- ern Pyrenees for a site to establish "an information and evacuation service" for the Belgian resistance. This site would act as a location for people and documents to be smug- gled across the border of France into Spain. They found it in the ruins of an abandoned saw mill in a town called Mendive. Dr. Schepens—now calling himself M. Pérot—convinced Mr. Pomerantzeff to purchase the mill and rehabilitate it, hatching a plan to make items including railroad ties, broomsticks, and wooden shoes as cover. He enrolled Jean Sarochar, a local shepherd, as a passeur, or escort, to lead people over the mountains. To maintain his cover as M. Pérot, Dr. Schepens developed rela- tionships with the occupying Ger- mans, leading his Basque neighbors to think that he was a Nazi collabo- rator. His wife, Cette, and two young children joined him from Belgium. Everything went according to plan until 1943: That year, a captured resistance agent exposed him. The Gestapo came for him a second time, this time at the mill. He escaped before they could arrest him. Mr. Sarochar hid Dr. Schepens in the mountains while the Ger- mans used Dr. Schepens' wife and children as bait to lure him out of hiding. Knowing this, he and Mr. Pomerantzeff escaped over the mountains to Spain, but without Mr. Sarochar as a guide because of the danger of being exposed and caught with too many people along. Charles Schepens, MD, was a double agent in France during the Second World War, a story that went largely untold until a curator/educator wrote a book about it O ne day in 1940, Nazi officers came to arrest Charles Schepens, MD. Dr. Schepens, an oph- thalmologist in Belgium, was not yet a part of the under- ground resistance movement against the Nazis, "but the incident pro- pelled him into action," according to "The Surgeon and the Shepherd: Two Resistance Heroes in Vichy France," the definitive book on Dr. Schepens' wartime experience, written by Meg Ostrum. Dr. Schepens was released shortly thereafter and not charged. He would go on to establish the first retina service and first retinal disease fellowship at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, found the Schepens Eye Research Institute, as well as invent the binocular indirect ophthalmoscope. He was a hero not just in oph- thalmology, but also in everyday life. "You just can't accept that kind of situation," he is quoted in "The Surgeon and the Shepherd" as saying about the Nazi occupation. "Medical friends, people who were in the same air force regiment, people I went to school with— most of them helped in one way or another." Dr. Schepens (pronounced Ska-pens) died in 2006. Before his death, a series of events led Ms. Ostrum to his story and, ultimately, to him. "It is one of those stories where truth is stranger than fiction," said Ms. Ostrum in an interview with EyeWorld. "It's one of those stories where it would be a stretch to invent it. But it's a true one." From ophthalmologist to spy Dr. Schepens' story is the stuff of Hollywood films. He was born in 1912 in Belgium and witnessed his first wartime resistance as a child from his father, a local physician. June 2015 Ophthalmologist who created vitreoretinal subspecialty lived double life as WWII resistance fighter and spy by Erin L. Boyle EyeWorld Editor continued on page 90 Index to Advertisers Abbott Medical Optics (AMO) Page: 5, 12, and 13 Phone: 714-247-8314 Fax: 714-247-8682 www.amo-inc.com APACRS Page: 45 Phone: 65-63278630 www.apacrs.org Alcon Laboratories Inc. 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Page: 23 Phone: 813-885-5050 Fax: 813-885-9346 www.rheinmedical.com Stephens Instruments Page: 40 Phone: 800-354-7848 Fax: 859-259-4926 www.usiol.com World Ophthalmology Congress Page: 71 www.WOC2016.org ASCRS•ASOA Information 2016 ASCRS Symposium and ASOA Congress Page: 41 AnnualMeeting.ascrs.org ASCRS Residents and Fellows Page: 59 www.ascrs.org ASCRS 2015 Film Festival Winners Page: 61 ASCRS•ASOA 365 App Page: 30 ASOA-COS Page: 63 www.asoa.org ASOA On Tour Page: 16 and 17 www.asoa.org EyeWorld at AAO 2016 Page: 55 EyeWorld Digital Page: 67 Digital.eyeworld.org EyeWorld RePlay Page: 43 www.ewreplay.org continued on page 90

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