European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The police in Seine-Maritime knew all the people that belonged to the Communist Party or to the Communist Youth Movement.

Before going undercover, we were politically active in public and therefore known.

They knew quite well that we would continue after the banning of the party and kept a close watch on us.

My parents did not really approve of my activities.

My father was more of an anarchist and did not accept that I was politically active.

He’d say: “You will see what happens to you”.

My arrest was not very spectacular.

When we went out to distribute the leaflets we’d hide them under our jacket. We didn’t take 500 at once.

Petit Quevilly was a little town of 20,000 inhabitants and the police knew everyone, especially those they shouldn’t have known.

The French and German police came to arrest us in the middle of the night.

They came at four, five o’clock in the morning, knocked on the door.

My father had barely opened the door; they had already arrived on the second floor, as I slept up there.

All went very quickly: getting dressed, going downstairs. That was on October 21st, 1941.

They took us to Rouen and started interrogating us, asking us various questions.

We were very careful to say as little as possible.

Then we were taken to a kangaroo court in Rouen.

We knew they would never let us go, but we did not know what was going to happen after imprisonment.

I knew the risk I was taking. But to be able to hide you needed a place to do so.

Many people were not ready to put us up, even if they were friends. They were scared of the police, of being arrested as well.

It was very difficult, so I stayed with my parents.