V for Victory: The "V" campaign began with a BBC broadcast on 13 January 1941 aimed at Belgium by Victor de Lavelaye, a Belgian radio personality, who suggested that his countrymen adopt the letter “V” as a symbol of resistance – V as in Victory or V as in Vrijheid (“freedom” in Flemish). On 22 January the BBC received the first letter from a Channel port saying that little V’s were appearing everywhere. In February, dozens of other reports saying the same thing flooded in. On 22 March the French section launched the order to cover walls with the letter V in honour of Yugoslavia’s King Peter, who refused to surrender to the Germans: the idea was immediately taken up in both zones. In Marseille thousands of patriots staged a spontaneous street demonstration. The Germans reacted with threats and punishments. The V sign was so successful and lasting throughout occupied Europe that in July Berlin found no other way to quash it than to follow suit (V for Viktoria). Occupation units received the order to display it at their quarters and on their vehicles; the Wehrmacht put a gigantic V on the Eiffel Tower.

V1 and V2: (in German, Vergeltungswaffe: retaliation weapon). The V1 was a flying, inaccurate jet-propelled bomb (500 kilos of explosives, 250 km range) that the Germans started launching against the United Kingdom in June 1944. The V2 was a powerful rocket (one ton of explosives, 350 km range) developed by Werner von Braun and his team. It was faster than the speed of sound, undetectable and started raining down on England in September 1944. Deportees and requisitioned workers made them in the camps.

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