European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Semi-clandestine activities 1939-41

The reason we distributed these leaflets was to alert the population and the workers in the factories.

We distributed leaflets in front of the factories and in different neighborhoods.

Often we would do that at night. But at night there were also police patrols.

So there would be two or three of us to distribute the leaflets and two or three to watch out for the police.

We had to be very careful.

We took many precautions: we’d hide the material to make the leaflets at someone’s place, the paper with somebody else.

We’d try to distribute them at night, to escape from the police.

But the police was there at night as well.

We also handed out leaflets at the gates of the factories, even though we were quite visible there.

We took precautions there as well. One of us would be on the look out for the police.

We’d leave around two or three o’clock in the morning to distribute the leaflets.

Sometimes we’d distribute them in front of the factory gates, even though that was very risky.

It was also difficult to produce the leaflets. It was good to distribute them, but they had to be made first!

So we tried to find friends that were not too well known and take the material there -

the mimeograph machine, and the typewriter and hide them in the basement.

We had to take precautions to protect these friends, but to be able to continue with our activities as well.

We organized ourselves, trying to find places where we could secretly meet,

where two or three of us could meet, maybe four, never more than four.

We would meet in a basement or at friends’ not known for their political activities, but willing to help.