European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

For instance, if I could, I slept in a bed. I’d arrive in a village and they would offer me a bed. I would risk it.

The Germans would come at night and that was a problem: how and where to hide.

I always had a mini-bunker somewhere to hide in. I acted completely against all rules, rather according to my instincts.

Once I was in my home village and Germans came suddenly at night.

Luckily it was very dark and they were roaming about with torches.

I was on the verge of coming home to my house and what was I to do?

They were going to inspect the houses. I got an idea.

I thought it wisest to follow the patrol to see where they were going. So I followed them, only meters behind, through the entire village.

I was careful of how I walked as not to be too loud. It was utterly dark but I didn’t need a torch.

I could move around independently or in small units, arranging ahead what we would do. I was also a courier.

We would always travel in pairs.

I wasn’t entirely aware of how dangerous it was. That was a great advantage to me.

To the same time it increased the danger factor, but things worked out. Many men, who were just as foolish as I, fell.

I am left with an almost romantic regard of combat, as if it was a romantic period. Which of course it wasn’t; far from it.

At the same time we were also falling in love. I was prepared to walk all night just to see my beloved from afar.

In short, we lived intensively under the conditions of war. We had to be careful.

There would be a meeting and we would dance and go wild, then we would fight the very next day.

This became the norm of our lives, we learned to count on it.

It was all the easier in the Primorje region, in the Karst especially.

Anywhere you came, someone immediately gave their cow to slaughter so the entire brigade could feast on goulash.