European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

Later on, in 1937/1938 I joined the Communist Youth Movement.

There you could fight for your demands.

My friends at the time asked me, “Why don’t you join the Communist Youth Movement?” So I did.

In 1936 we participated in the Trade Union’s activities. We participated in the strikes and then I joined the Communist Youth Movement.

It meant that we had to prepare ourselves to go undercover. We were in a semi-undercover state.

The Communist Party and the Communist Youth Movement had been outlawed, which caused a lot of turmoil.

My father, who had anarchist tendencies,

asked me if I was going to stop my activities as he thought I was going to pay dearly.

I answered him, that it was my business. I was 17 at the time and argued: “Should one stop just because…”

I asked him how he could work as a coppersmith on ships in 1936/1937 and not even join the trade union.

We had quite a discussion. He himself was not politically active. That took some effort and he worked a lot.

We had to keep a low profile. You can not really call it undercover; we were known to the police.

So we had to take some precautionary measures:

Only going out at night, and also being careful because of police raids. It was extremely difficult. But we did not give up.

When distributing leaflets we would try to go out at night, but also not too often, because one had to be careful.

Under these circumstances I became politically active, at work and in my daily life.

Introduction: family, school, work