European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The neighbour said that we could not stay with her, because she had five children of her own

and she was alone with them, as well.

They had taken the oldest daughter, the farmer girl and the farmer away.

On the day they arrested our family,

they arrested so many people that a horse stable near Eisenkappl was full.

They took them away in lorries

to Klagenfurt and from there to various concentration camps.

Even my godfather, the neighbour, did not come back.

He died in Dachau, but his daughter and the farmer girl came back.

They were the only ones who came back from the concentration camp.

Introduction; Family arrested

I was born in Remschenig near Eisenkappl into a Slovenian family;

at my aunt’s, really, where my mother was a farm maid.

There where Katarina’s sons Michael Sluga, Karl Paulitsch and Franz Rotter.

Franz Rotter was a member of the German ‘Wehrmacht’;

so was Karl Sluga, who crossed over to the partisans.

Michael Sluga joined the partisans straight away instead of enlisting.

In 1943 it became dangerous. Katarina Sluga escaped to the partisans then.

My aunt was interested in culture and politics.

She soon started to organise meetings against Hitler and to attend other meetings.