European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Slowly the population itself started doing the protecting.

We had a certain amount of support in the population. In the beginning there was mostly fear.

When we handed out leaflets, the people would scatter. Later on things changed.

When the police arrived, they would form groups to hinder the police from passing. It made it possible for us to escape.

In Nanterre, at the place of the current university, there was a camp called “aviation camp”,

that had been occupied by the Germans.

It was used to recuperate material, like pieces of downed airplanes. Soviet prisoners worked there.

One day a comrade went to visit his wife in the hospital

and was approached for a cigarette by a young POW speaking no French.

Our comrade told him to come back the next day with other clothes and we helped him escape.

It was risky, but we took risks every day.

The young man is on that picture I showed you, along with Louis Meunier and me.

He joined a ‘maquis’. To our great regret we never found out what happened to him.

We had the possibility to help him escape, so we did.

Organization, structure, persecution

In the beginning, we all knew each other.

When the first people were arrested we realized we needed a new form of organization.

This was not specific for Nanterre. We were not used to working or organizing ourselves undercover.

The instructions we got from the Communist Youth or from the Communist Party were to organize in triangles.

We were to get together in groups of three comrades.