European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

“That will happen to you, as well,” said the chief of the company

“if you don’t do as you are told.”

Gestapo-interrogation, release, support

In January 1940 I was taken on a transport.

I was not released.

During the war it was standard practice that many would not be released.

It went via Hannover and then to Berlin.

At the Gestapo more interrogations took place.

My sister knew that I was coming to Berlin.

She daily went there and asked: “When will you release my brother?”

And I affirm: if my sister would not have engaged herself so much,

I would not have been released.

I was under police supervision for five years – that was in the verdict.

Any day they could have taken you again, as you could not leave Germany.

A friend, whom I had been illegally working with, got me a job.

He was one of the music group members.

There were tickets for everything.

And when I came out, friends or comrades had collected:

butter, one of them must have slaughtered a chicken

You were directly helped, so the one who was released had a decent welcome.