European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)
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If the police detected a connection between a person and well-known political activist, you could be arrested.
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It was dangerous for us as well as for the people we’d give the material to - if they were caught by the police etc. It was very difficult.
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First political engagements
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I started working in a factory in 1934/1935. And then were the big days of 1936.
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It was then I joined the labor movement. I participated in the big strikes of 1936. I was 16, worked in a factory.
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Later on, in 1937/1938 I joined the Communist Youth Movement.
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There you could fight for your demands.
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My friends at the time asked me, “Why don’t you join the Communist Youth Movement?” So I did.
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In 1936 we participated in the Trade Union’s activities. We participated in the strikes and then I joined the Communist Youth Movement.
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It meant that we had to prepare ourselves to go undercover. We were in a semi-undercover state.
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The Communist Party and the Communist Youth Movement had been outlawed, which caused a lot of turmoil.
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My father, who had anarchist tendencies,
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asked me if I was going to stop my activities as he thought I was going to pay dearly.
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I answered him, that it was my business. I was 17 at the time and argued: “Should one stop just because…”
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I asked him how he could work as a coppersmith on ships in 1936/1937 and not even join the trade union.
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We had quite a discussion. He himself was not politically active. That took some effort and he worked a lot.
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We had to keep a low profile. You can not really call it undercover; we were known to the police.
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So we had to take some precautionary measures:
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Only going out at night, and also being careful because of police raids. It was extremely difficult. But we did not give up.
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When distributing leaflets we would try to go out at night, but also not too often, because one had to be careful.
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