European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

It was so dangerous they decided the aunt should go back to Carinthia.

Hidden in an earth cellar

We were quite desperate.

Then we remembered we still had another aunt nearby.

We would go there; it was aunty Amalija.

She had three children of her own, and her husband was still at home.

We stayed there. But the aunt had such a small flat.

So she went to our house, where she looked after the small animals

and us children because we had enough to eat at home.

But it was an area for partisans and there was always fighting.

It was dangerous at the house.

We could stay around the house during the day

and at night she locked us into the cellar and went home.

She left two of her children, because they were bigger and took the youngest one with her.

So there were the two of us and the cousin.

We slept in the cellar.

It was an earth cellar, in the rock

and it was very damp, cold and totally dark.

Everything was padded with hay and covers so nobody would hear us.

We weren’t allowed to cough or to go out to the loo.