European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

That meant we had enough room to prepare ourselves for the illegal work,

the anti-fascist fight from March 1938 until the Munich Agreement on 29th September 1938.

That made the difference between the anti-fascist fight in the German areas of Czechoslovakia,

which are now called ‘Sudetenland’,

and the fight of the German and Austrian anti-Fascists

who did neither have these experiences, nor these preparation times.

Therefore the efficiency of our fight was higher.

There were no party obligations to take part in the resistance.

It was a voluntary decision whether or not you put up a fight,

whether you would take the risk to stand with one foot in the grave.

This decision had to be made by everyone alone.

Presentation, Introduction

My name is Lorenz Knorr;

born in 1921 and grown up in Eger, now Cheb, in the German populated areas of Czechoslovakia.

I am a trained typesetter and typographer.

After 1945 I was active in the socialistic youth as a state and federation secretary.

For 25 years I was the head of the German Union of Peace

and then federation spokesman for the Association of the victims of persecution by the Nazi regime.

If you grew up in a family of a labour union official, in the German populated areas of Czechoslovakia

during the twenties and thirties, of the last century,