European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

He was born on November 16th, 1924 in Warsaw. He joined the scouts from in the mid-thirties. During the siege of Warsaw in October 1939 He helped the troops to move around the city. During the first years of occupation he engaged as a member of the Main Tutelary Council (RGO) and helped the poor and the war prisoners. He often illegally provided food and organized the evasions of Polish officers from German prisons. At the same time he took part in life-saving actions in the ghetto, leading Jews to the Arian side. He was a member of the Armia Krajowa (the Home Army), was arrested in 1942 and put in Pawiak prison. Later he was moved to Majdanek, Buchenwald and Schonebeck concentration camps. He is living in Warsaw today.

She was born on October 12th, 1916 in St. Petersburg. Before World War II her family bought the estate in Orwidów Dolny in the Vilnius county, today Lithuania. On Sept 17th 1939 the Soviet Army invaded the territory, the Vilnius county became a part of Lithuania, and after that of the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1941, her mother was deported to the Soviet Union inland during the surge of repression on Polish people. After the German invasion in the summer of 1941, Stefania started to hide people oppressed by the occupant in the estate where she lived alone. Several refugees from Warsaw, Jews, members of the leftist resistance movement were hiding there. Most of them survived the war. Stefania Dąmbrowska engaged in the works of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) in Lublin as well as the committee documenting the Nazi genocide in the Majdanek concentration camp. She was awarder the medal of the Just Among the World’s Nations. She lives in Warsaw.

He was born on February 4th, 1929 in Warsaw. At the beginning of the war he engaged in the scouts’ activities, took part in reconnaissance actions and acts of sabotage. During the Warsaw Uprising he took part as a member of the AK (Home Army) in the unsuccessful attack on the Okęcie airport. Later on he reached the forests near Warsaw and subsequently served in three partisan squads. After the war, for a few years he was imprisoned in communist prison for subversive activity. He lives in Józefów near Warsaw.

Ana Zablatnik was born in 1923 in the village Ludmannsdorf/Bilčovs in the southern part of Carinthia. She belongs to the Slovenian speaking minority. Early, she and her family were confronted with humiliations. The threat of being deported by the Nazis in 1942, from which she and her family luckily stayed unharmed, led to the decision to contact the partisans of the „Osvobodilna fronta“, the Slovenian liberation front. They were active in 1943 near her home village. On May 6th 1944 she was arrested and brought to a Gestapo-prison in Klagenfurt. From the beginning of 1945, she awaited her trial in the notorious court of justice, but it was not realized anymore. She was released in the last days of war (4.-6. May 1945). She kept her resistant attitude against any form of discrimination up to today.

Lucien Ducastel est né le 28 août 1920 à Darnetal dans le département Seine-Maritime. C’est à cette époque aussi qui s’engage dans la Jeunesse communiste. Suite à ses activité en tant que membre du Parti Communiste auquel il a adhéré peu avant qui est interdit et qui implique dans la période juste après l’armistice signé par Pétain en octobre 1940 un travail de sensibilisation de la population française à la situation d’occupation par la distribution de tractes surtout à la sortie des usines, la mise en place d’une affichage contre l’occupant et la politique de Vichy, il est arrêté par la police française chez ses parents à Petit-Quevilly le 21 octobre 1941. Il sera transféré à la prison de Rouen, d’où il part avec une centaine de camerades pour le camp de Compiègne, camp d’otage. Après 8 mois au camp de Compiègne, il part avec le transport du 6 juillet 1942, dit plus tard aussi le convoi des 45000 les hommes, un convoi essentiellement avec des opposants politique, pour Auschwitz où il arrive trois jours plus tard. Lucien porte le numéro 45491 et sera un des rares qui revient en France. Lucien Ducastel sera transféré dès son arrivé à Auschwitz-Birkenau où il reste pendant 8 mois, après il retourne au Stammlager Auschwitz I et sera tranféré en août 1944 à Gross-Rosen, et de là à Dora-Mittelbau où il sera libéré. Après une longue période de rétablissement, il retourne sur les chantiers du bâtiment et il reprend aussi son activité en tant que membre du Parti Communiste Français et en tant que syndicaliste. Il fond une famille, et s’installe dans les années 50 à Nanterre où il vit encore aujourd’hui. Il s’engage dans une association « Mémoire vive » et va dans les collèges et lycées témoigner de son vécu.

Fernando Cavazzini was born in Reggio Emilia on 23 September 1923. On 25 July 1943 he took part in public demonstrations in Reggio Emilia, demanding peace and celebrating the fall of the fascist regime. From then on he was involved in the antifascist struggle. After the 8th of September 1943 he assisted soldiers by providing them with plain clothes and helping them to flee. He later became a partisan and left for the mountains, joining the 26th Garibaldi Brigade »Enzo Bagnoli«. His battle name was »Tony«. He took part in the battle of Cerrè Sologno, in the Appennini mountains near Reggio, one of the most significant battles between the partisans of the mountains and fascists and Germans. He later became the head of a sapper unit called »Demonio«, that had to mine and blow up all the bridges in the Province of Reggio. After the war, he was awarded a Bronze Medal for Military Valour.

Giacomina Castagnetti was born in Roncolo di Quattro Castella (RE) on 11 November 1925. She now lives in Castelnovo né Monti (RE). From 1940 she collected contributions in the area of Quattro Castella for »Soccorso Rosso«, an underground Communist network that assisted antifascists who were victims of political persecution during the fascist regime. She joined the Resistance movement after the 8th of September 1943, in the »women support groups«, women organizations set up by the CLN in order to assist the partisans. She operated in the area of San Martino in Rio (RE) until the Liberation, on 24th April 1945.

Anita Malavasi, Quattro Castella 21 May 1921 - Reggio Emilia 27 November 2011. She began supporting the partisan struggle after the 8th of September 1943. From the spring of 1944 she operated as a dispatch rider, transporting weapons from the city to the mountains. Her battle name was »Laila«. She then joined the 144th Garibaldi Brigade »Antonio Gramsci«, taking part in the armed struggle in the Reggio area of the Appennini mountains from 2 January 1945 until the Liberation. In that period she was also one of the few women appointed Detachment Commanding Officer, while at the end of the war she was finally appointed Sergeant-Major.

Pierino Beggi was born on 3 March 1920 and died in Reggio Emilia on 9 January 2015. He was in the military when the fascist regime fell. When the armistice was signed he was in Piemonte, near the French border, and managed to avoid being captured by the Germans. When he returned in Reggio Emilia, in 1943 he enrolled in the GAPs (Patriotic Action Groups). His battle name was »Gigi«. Beggi carried out attacks and sabotages and also took part in the action that lead to the rescue of the valuable curtain of Reggio Emilia’s »Valli« theatre. He contributed to the Liberation of Reggio Emilia on 24 April 1945 and witnessed the arrival of the Allies.

Giovanna Quadreri was born in Carpineti (RE) on 14 July 1928. She now lives in Reggio Emilia. She was involved in the partisan struggle from September 1944 until the Liberation, operating between Reggio Emilia and the mountains near the city. Giovanna Quadreri, whose battle names were »Giorgio« and »Libertà«, acted as a dispatch rider in this area, taking care of communications between the Resistance movement city headquarters, the 284thFiamme Verdi Brigade »Italo« – a catholic unit operating in the area of Toano (RE) – and the central headquarters in the Appennini near Reggio. From the beginning of 1945 she joined a special unit called »Gufo Nero« (Black Owl), which received orders directly from the central headquarters of the mountains and took care of communications with the Allied battalion led by Major Lees, a British officer.

Alenka graduated in 1941 and became a painter. She was on vacation in Ljubljana when Germany attacked the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (6 April 1941). The Kingdom of Yugoslavia capitulated 17 days after Germany’s attack and this was a huge disappointment for Alenka. Ljubljana, situated in the Italian occupied zone, was the centre of the resistance movement and headquarters for Partisans. Following the arrest of her father in early 1944, she had to go into underground. After four months in hiding, she left Ljubljana and joined the partisans in the summer of 1944. She worked in the partisans print, with graphics, leaflets, posters and propaganda. She was active as a cultural worker and created scenes for several plays. Alenka married Vito Globočnik, also a Partisan, but lost him soon after the war due to illness. The most beautiful day in her life was the day she returned to a liberated Ljubljana, on 9th May 1945. Alenka worked as a teacher of art up until her retirement, and since then has been painting landscapes.

Male, born on 4 July 1925 in Ponikve na Krasu, Slovenia. Already as a child, Ciril Zlobec, as a member of the Slovene minority in Italy, was subjugated to fascist denationalization procedures: he had to attend an Italian school and he was not permitted to speak Slovene in public. He wrote his first poem, expressing his Slovenian civil rights, at the age of 13. In 1941, Zlobec was expelled from the high school located in the small theological seminary in Koper, when he was caught writing poems in Slovene. He became an activist in the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation in 1942 and at the beginning of the following year he was mobilized to the special battalions (political confinement for young Primorje Slovenians). Upon the fall of Italy in September 1943, he returned home and joined the partisans. He was a fighter, a political delegate, a courier and an informer. He founded Slovene schools throughout the Karst area, he taught, and he gave lectures at the Partisan’s People’s University. Zlobec continued his studies in Ljubljana and graduated as a Slavic scholar. He then worked as a reporter and an editor. He is a poet, a writer and a translator. He served one mandate as the president of the Yugoslavian Writer’s Association. He was elected to the Presidency of the first independent Slovene state at the first multi-party elections in 1990. He is an ordinary member of the Slovene Academy for Arts and Sciences. He has published several collections of poems, two novels and five books of essays and journalisms. 18 of his books are translated into foreign languages. He has received several literary awards at home and abroad.

Male, born on 19th of April, 1924 in Šentjanž (Rečici ob Savinji), Slovenia, Catholic. Prior to WWII, Ivan Srčnik was a member of the SKOJ, the association of young communists of Yugoslavia. Following the German occupation of Lower Styria, he was forcibly mobilized in the German Army in 1942 and sent to the Russian front. He was captured by the Red Army in Bakaleja. At the end of December 1943, he left the POW camp at Kolomina and, as a combatant of the Yugoslav battalion, headed towards Yugoslavia. He fought on the Yugoslav front as a member of the Yugoslav resistance movement up to the liberation.

Lipej Kolenik was born on the 22.9.1925 in Margarethen near Bleiburg/Šmarjeta pri Pliberku. He had his first contact with partisans in spring 1943. He did courier jobs. In August 1943, he had to go to the Wehrmacht; firstly, to be trained, but soon he was transtered to Slovenia and in the end of 1943 to the Italian front. Here he got heavy frostbites on his feet and was moved to several military hospitals, in the end to Klagenfurt. On the occasion of a visit on the farm of his parents, he deserted to the partisans. He was active in various units. In March, he was severely wounded and witnessed the liberation hidden in a bunker, with hardly any medical support. After war he was unemployed and stayed politically active. He was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned. He is chairman of the Carinthian partisan association.

Vincent grandit dans un milieu ouvrier et communiste, son père l’amène très tôt à différentes manifestations. Dès qu’il peut il adhère à la Jeunesse Communiste. Après la débâcle en juin 1940, et son retour à Nanterre. Alors il participe aux actions comme la diffusion et la fabrication des tractes et affichage, il est engagé dans les Forces unies de la jeunesse patriotique (FUJP), un mouvement de différentes organismes de jeunesse à orientation politique et religieuse. A partir du moment où il passe en clandestinité fin 1942, car il refuse de partir en STO en Allemagne, son activité change, il s’engage dans les Francs-Tireurs et Particants (FTP) et assure surtout la sécurité lors des actions de prise de paroles dans des lieux publiques. Tenant le grade de lieutenant grâce à ses activités dans le Résistance il s’engage dans l’armée au moment de la Libération, et sera rattaché au bataillon Hoche. Vincent est démobilisé en juin 1945. Après guerre il revient sur Nanterre, où sa femme l’attend, il reprend sa profession de mécanicien. De 1954 jusqu’en 1966, il est maire adjoint en charge de question enfance et sport. A partir de 1966 il travail au secrétariat de la Fédération sportive et gymnique du travail (FSGT), d’abord au niveau national et après au niveau départementale jusqu’à sa retraite en 1980, tout en gardant ses activité en tant qu’élu à la municipalité.

Carlo Porta was born in Gavasseto di Reggio Emilia on May 18, 1919, into a large family of farm workers who followed the socialist ideas of Camillo Prampolini. At the age of sixteen he was already an active member of the Socialist Party, taking part in the International Red Relief by collecting small amounts of money or goods for the Republican fighters in Spain. After being employed as a factory worker at Officine Meccaniche Reggiane, an engineering plant that manufactured armaments during Mussolini’s regime, in 1938 he is called up for military service. While in the Army, authorities find out about his antifascist militancy: he is arrested and imprisoned in Civitavecchia, Regina Coeli (Rome), Reggio Emilia and Castelfranco Emilia. Perfunctorily judged by the Special Tribunal for National Security, he is sentenced to three years’ confinement in the farming penal colony of Pisticci (Matera), in the region of Basilicata. While in confinement, he meets chief figures of the Italian Communist Party, whose teachings would contribute to mould his political beliefs. At the end of the three years of confinement he returns to Reggio Emilia, but a few months later he is called to the Army again and sent to Albania with the Italian occupation forces. He is in Albania on the 8th of September of 1943, the day of the Armistice: captured by the Germans, he is sent to internment camps in Germany in stock wagons. He reaches his first destination after sixteen days and is interned as a IMI (Italian Interned Soldier) in the marshalling camp of Neubrandenburg. His identification number was 108 481. He is freed only two years later, while in the Wickede camp, near Dortmund.

We protected the partisans so much when we were kids; they were our friends and the Germans were our enemies.