European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

They would let us in. We’d arrive at different times.

But then there was also the need to hide the material, the mimeograph, the typewriter etc…

We had to be careful with all of that.

There were various newspaper publications in the Rouen region,

talking about the number of political activists being arrested. One had to be very careful.

We had a certain amount of support in the population.

Some people said we shouldn’t do that, or when we were arrested, they’d say:

“They shouldn’t have done that”, but others did support us, some of them very quietly because they were afraid.

If the police detected a connection between a person and well-known political activist, you could be arrested.

It was dangerous for us as well as for the people we’d give the material to - if they were caught by the police etc. It was very difficult.

First political engagements

I started working in a factory in 1934/1935. And then were the big days of 1936.

It was then I joined the labor movement. I participated in the big strikes of 1936. I was 16, worked in a factory.