European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

And then another example: In 1932

we went on a holiday to the Baltic Sea with the children from ‘Fichte’.

During this time a holiday camp (which had been organized by the social democrats) was attacked by the SA.

Children and adults were injured during this attack.

We were meant to be attacked, too,

but we still carried on with our camp, as we had received support by labourer’s organisations from a village.

And fortunately there was no attack.

Who knows what that would have turned out to be like.

Hitler, he received the power through Hindenburg.

The labour movement was so divided that no unified resistance could be formed.

There were a lot of protest demonstrations.

That led to the provocation later on – the burning of the Reichstag –

after which many people were arrested. It had all been prepared for.

There were mass arrests of the labour officials.

Political education

Something else helped my attitude and that was the year 1929, I think.

That was when the book “All quiet on the Western Front “, by Remarque was published.

This book was read by the organised youngsters of the union,

in the SAJ (socialistic labourer youth) or communistic labourer youth or by the labourer sportsmen.

The older ones, who took part in the First World War, had to report at our youth centre evenings: