European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

In Nanterre, at the place of the current university, there was a camp called “aviation camp”,

that had been occupied by the Germans.

It was used to recuperate material, like pieces of downed airplanes. Soviet prisoners worked there.

One day a comrade went to visit his wife in the hospital

and was approached for a cigarette by a young POW speaking no French.

Our comrade told him to come back the next day with other clothes and we helped him escape.

It was risky, but we took risks every day.

The young man is on that picture I showed you, along with Louis Meunier and me.

He joined a ‘maquis’. To our great regret we never found out what happened to him.

We had the possibility to help him escape, so we did.

Organization, structure, persecution

In the beginning, we all knew each other.

When the first people were arrested we realized we needed a new form of organization.

This was not specific for Nanterre. We were not used to working or organizing ourselves undercover.

The instructions we got from the Communist Youth or from the Communist Party were to organize in triangles.

We were to get together in groups of three comrades.

In case of an arrest we could only give away two names under torture.

One out of the three was responsible.

We formed a sort of spider web, with these triangles, on all levels of the organization.

That was the structure of the clandestine organization of the Communist Party, which then applied to the French snipers and partisans.