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interview // german // 4:20 Min // 17.06.2008
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The revolt was beaten down within a few days, but they kept working until 1938, when we were linked to Germany.
The father, Wasilij, was still young. And he kept saying that, because of the National Socialism: “That will be no good.” but we mustn’t repeat what he said. Afterwards, the authority was taken over by the Nazis, they locked up a number of people of the Slovenian minority and priests and such, straight away. There we saw that it would not be the way it had been promised before. It was just a time without work and without bread. And that helped the national socialists a lot to come into power. Bread and work - that was everything. And many let themselves be led by the propaganda and even believed that everything would be okay again. And that the people would live and live well – under Adolf Hitler. But when the first Slovenians were locked up, we already knew my father was right. And this is how it kept going on. The people lost their belief in Adolf Hitler and the resistance formed against fascism and Hitlerism. The first deserters from the ‘Wehrmacht’ had already escaped to Yugoslavia in 1939. And after the occupation of Yugoslavia they were arrested there or they had gone into hiding under a false name; as my colleague Karl Potoschki did. He was working under false name at a hotel in Bosnia. And already on the 20th October 1939, he was shot together with 20.000 ‘chosen ones’ and finished off. The ones that came back after the occupation of Yugoslavia were mostly locked up, respectively were the cadres of the liberation front of the Slovenes of Carinthia. Some joined the partisans straight away; others later on, but the beginning had been made. And from day to day the resistance grew stronger. And today, when you realise how courageous the people were – then again it involved the ‘head’ and the people didn’t have a clue. And the poor people, respectively the plain people, were the ones that helped the rebellion. And as well, without the help of the rural population, resistance would have been impossible. Only because of the help of the rural population it was possible that the number of partisans became bigger each day. And the hope that one day things would change.
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