European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

and from there behind a hut that had been a wood shed before.

They had a shack for the forestry workers and that was where I lived until the end of the war.

Again it were the women who helped me.

They brought milk, bread and sugar.

They cared for me like my mother.

I will never forget these people.

You cannot repay for that either.

Only a real thank you, nothing else.

Sending in children and women

Most of the young people took a lot of the responsibility.

The police did not control the children quite as strictly as the older people.

The little children used to carry the mail for us and so on.

And they informed us as well when somebody was wounded.

Transmission of information

The way it was organised was wonderful.

From home the news went to the neighbour; from the neighbour to somebody else and so on.

A few hours before the police came from Bleiburg

to go hunting for partisans – or bandits – as they said, we already knew.

It was agreed that a red flag on a house would indicate danger; a white flag meant everything was fine.

So we were already warned. Except of when the police came at night.