European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Then I started working in construction, in civil projects, doing repair work on ships.

I did all sorts of different things, always manual work though.

I was 16 years old in 1936 and I worked in factories.

I had simply become a worker and got to know the whole period of 1936, the strikes and all that it represented.

The strikes of 1936 were the beginning of it all.

There was a labour movement that manifested itself. I was already part of the working class.

In these conditions the 1936 movement manifested itself a little bit everywhere and there were big demonstrations.

It meant very much to the working class movement in France. It was important.

Reasons for resistance

I would have been disloyal to my own convictions, if I hadn’t joined the resistance.

My grandfather was jailed in the KUK Empire,

Emperor Royal Monarchy of the Habsburgs, because he fought for socialism.

My father was jailed because he fought for socialism.

It was obvious, that I would work in the same track,

therefore would not passively let it wash over me, but work against it.

I was not alone and we had learned not just to back off when the enemy attacked, but to think about where to start a counter-attack.

If you were sure about being needed in the time after Hitler, to that time this was an important sentence: “…for the time after Hitler.”

So you would work illegally but do not take unnecessary risks.

It was obvious that you would deliberately throw a spanner in the works,

as long as you could and as long as you could breathe.