European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)
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who together can achieve something historically significant.
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So I decided that I can’t let myself just stand aside.
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So I went straight to the telephone – there weren’t many at the time, but we had one in our home –
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and called my friends, who I’d heard whispering stuff. I had sensed it had something to do with the occupier.
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I said I wanted to get ‘in’, that I also wanted to do whatever they knew about. The very next day I was called to my first meeting.
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Introduction
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For many years I also taught drawing at various schools,
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but now in my old age I have dedicated myself entirely to my primary vocation – painting.
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I’m 87 years old. My generation experienced WWII.
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Experienced massive changes during the war and then after the war as well.
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I must say that we imagined a different world after WWII. A different world would arise than the one we live in now.
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But one just has to adjust one’s expectations to what is going on in society.
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At the time I was very active in Ljubljana and a lot was going on in Ljubljana.
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The walls were plastered with lists of hostages
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and practically every day you would be informed of something horrible.
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It is difficult to say whether one could even feel in the mood to create some great piece of art.
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Nonetheless, I would, just to remain a painter –
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usually doing things similar to that in the program at the Zagreb Academy – just enough to stay in condition.
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It was later, when I joined the partisans that I could finally make use of my painting skills.
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Romana Verdel was born in Remschenig/Remcenik in 1938 in the bilingual part of Carinthia/Koroska. Her familiy belonged to the Slovenian minority. Together with her mother Anna Rotter and other relatives, she lived at the house of Katarina Sluga, her politically engaged aunt and founder of the antifascist women’s association. Being accused of a critical attitude towards National Socialism and network activities, some relatives join the Slovene partisans in 1943. Romana remains undiscovered by the Gesatpo and is being hidden with the children by her aunt Amalija, who also joins the partisans in the mountains and in Solcava in the valley Logartal. In April 1944, Amalija returns to Carinthia/Koroska. Roman is being taken in at a farmhouse and survives war there. 13 of her relatives fall with the partisans or die in concentration camps. The orphan Romana stays as a maid in the farm and later moves to the farmhouse of her partents in Remschenig/Remcenik. For 20 years, she suffers from anaemia. By and by, her life becomes more normal, but »when a child suffers from war and even is lucky enough to survive – the fear remains all your life«.
Romana Verdel was born in Remschenig/Remcenik in 1938 in the bilingual part of Carinthia/Koroska. Her familiy belonged to the Slovenian minority. Together with her mother Anna Rotter and other relatives, she lived at the house of Katarina Sluga, her politically engaged aunt and founder of the antifascist women’s association. Being accused of a critical attitude towards National Socialism and network activities, some relatives join the Slovene partisans in 1943. Romana remains undiscovered by the Gesatpo and is being hidden with the children by her aunt Amalija, who also joins the partisans in the mountains and in Solcava in the valley Logartal. In April 1944, Amalija returns to Carinthia/Koroska. Roman is being taken in at a farmhouse and survives war there. 13 of her relatives fall with the partisans or die in concentration camps. The orphan Romana stays as a maid in the farm and later moves to the farmhouse of her partents in Remschenig/Remcenik. For 20 years, she suffers from anaemia. By and by, her life becomes more normal, but »when a child suffers from war and even is lucky enough to survive – the fear remains all your life«.
Romana Verdel was born in Remschenig/Remcenik in 1938 in the bilingual part of Carinthia/Koroska. Her familiy belonged to the Slovenian minority. Together with her mother Anna Rotter and other relatives, she lived at the house of Katarina Sluga, her politically engaged aunt and founder of the antifascist women’s association. Being accused of a critical attitude towards National Socialism and network activities, some relatives join the Slovene partisans in 1943. Romana remains undiscovered by the Gesatpo and is being hidden with the children by her aunt Amalija, who also joins the partisans in the mountains and in Solcava in the valley Logartal. In April 1944, Amalija returns to Carinthia/Koroska. Roman is being taken in at a farmhouse and survives war there. 13 of her relatives fall with the partisans or die in concentration camps. The orphan Romana stays as a maid in the farm and later moves to the farmhouse of her partents in Remschenig/Remcenik. For 20 years, she suffers from anaemia. By and by, her life becomes more normal, but »when a child suffers from war and even is lucky enough to survive – the fear remains all your life«.