European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I don’t know the exact date of my fathers’ emigration,

but it took place between 1921 and 1922, as I was born in 1923.

When I was six months old, my mother and I came to France to join my father.

Since then I have lived in Nanterre. For almost 83 years now.

My father was a Communist, an antifascist.

He joined the French Communist Party as soon as we got French citizenship.

He applied for naturalization in 1930. Otherwise it was very difficult to find work.

I went to school, “The Ecole Republique”, in Nanterre.

The school has now disappeared to make way for the University Paris X.

I went to that school until the age of 13 and got my Elementary School Certificate - Certificat d’Etudes.

To please my teacher, I took an entry test for high school, but it was not my goal.

At the time my brother had just been born,

my mother was not working because she had a heart disease.

We needed to call the doctor often and my father was only a worker, so we were not very rich.

On one hand, I wanted to contribute to the family by working.

On the other hand, I wanted

to be free and independent. That was even more important.

So at the age of 14, I started working.

That was in 1937/1938, during the first crisis, and unemployment was a big issue.

As I had learned no trade, I did a little bit of everything.