Anni Sadernian This spring the 30th anniversary of the liberation from fascism is being ob- served throughout Europe. There are recollections of battles, historical analyses, and solemn observances at the many monuments to the heroism of the Soviet fighting forces and the resistance fighters. | have interviewed two women who took an active part in the struggle against fascism and in molding their countries after victory. Both lived through the hell of fascist prisons, including the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp where 92,000 wom- en from every corner of Europe perished. Both are among the seven million concen- tration camp inmates who survived; both their husbands were murdered by the Hit- lerites. : But what unites the fate of these two women of different nationalities is the fact that they are both Communists. As such, they clearly saw the path to a better life for their people even before Hitler unleashed his regime of terror. Both held fast to their convictions throughout the days of fascism, and immediately after victory they went to work to rebuild their countries. Sindermann of the German Democratic Republic, tell the story of the role of Commu- time. Thus the lives of these two women, Augusta Fuchik of Czechoslovakia and Anni nists, and of Communist Parties, in changing the world — the greatest story of our | Auguste Fuchik A ; BERLIN Nni Sindermann’s life reflects the Struggle of the revolutionary German work- ing class in the past six decades. She is a Spare woman in her sixties, and she lalks with calm assurance about the trials and victories of those decades, which were also her trials and victories. She knew the meaning of exploitation at aN early age. Her mother was a progressive lextile worker who had’ to struggle hard to Taise her two children: in Plauen, a lace- Making center. ___ ‘We were terribly poor,” Mrs. Sinder- Mann told me. “My mother worked 56 Ours a week and walked to work and back ‘Very day to save the fare. When I was 11 Years old, I started working as a ‘‘mother’s lper” after school. I was employed by Petty bourgeois families to wash dishes, do Ousework; run errands and mind the chil- the: I'd come home at 7 or 8 p.m., and for Was too tired to do my homework.” _ : ke all workers’ children, she left Chool when she was 14. “I very much Wanted to become a kindergarten teacher,”’ tt in addition to my not learning during t time. It was out of the question. I was Ucky to get a job through my mother’s ef- orts — | worked in the sample room of a textile mill as an unskilled worker and was eer was a house painter, but that was ie! work and when he. was not work- 3 . he got 4.30 Marks, unemployment insur- a3 My mother earned about 20 Marks 1 th I was glad to be able to contribute to } “household.” t 15 she became a member of the com- | eo youth organization and at 17 she | ated the Communist Party. She was soon | “ply involved in organizing. st P arty school for women,”’ she said. ‘‘I With pressed with what we learned and Phi the comrades I met.”’ By that time she Rey Moved to Chemnitz (now Karl Marx 5 t) and been given the task of building Youth Organization in the factory where Moe orked, which employed 1,200 workers, ~8stly women. tio, € successes in organizing strike ac- ae Soon got her blacklisted. ‘The shop eh Ward was a Social Democrat and glad WavBh to be rid of me,”’ she recalled. That ‘during the great depression and “it dest t me most clearly how capitalism Bats people.”” During that period she mu her future husband, who was a Com- thet deputy, Both of them devoted all of f..“fforts to trying to avert the disaster and sciSm. They were both arrested in 1933, Whi then went through a period during ous jail terms alternated with the ardu- ASK of building a resistance movement. te’ ' jail in 1934,”” Mrs. Sindermann con- in eh When not in jail, she worked chiefly atrec sden. In 1935 they were both re- *sted — with 60 others — and sentenced leg . five-year term. “After our re- Some| We continued our illegal work and tolg tow managed to start a child,’ she Me with a smile. They worked to or- Cont'd. on pg. 6 W ORLD MAGAZINE S I was paid 1.50 Marks per week. Often’ she said, “‘but we would have had to pay tui-. ] Paid 8.40 Marks for ‘a 48-hour week. My~ Nn 1929 I was a delegate toa Commun- © S the youngest there and was enormous- € were married while my husband. Two women— victory — over death — By Margrit Pittman fionurent to victims of Ravensbruck, Pere Lachaise cemetery, Paris. : PRAGUE first heard of Augusta Fuchik in 1948 when Julius Fuchik’s prison diary, Notes from the Gallows, was published in the Uni- ted States. This book was written in Prague’s Pankrats prison and secretly re- moved from there, sheet by sheet, by a guard. It is one of the most moving and courageous documents of the anti-Hitler resistance. In a short preface, Mrs. Fuchik tells how she had learned of her husband’s death sen- tence while she was imprisoned in Ravens- brueck concentration camp and how, after liberation, ‘‘I searched for my husband, just as others by the thousands searched and searched for their husbands, wives, children, fathers and mothers who had been dragged off by the German invaders to numberless torture hells.”’ She learned that her husband had been executed on September 8, 1943, and even- tually she found the Czech guard who had saved the manuscript. The first time I saw Mrs. Fuchik was last July when she addressed the Czecho- slovak parliament, favoring ratification of the pact with the Federal Republic of Ger- many as an important step toward securing the peace won in 1945 by smashing Hitler’s war machine. Pleading for adoption of the measure, she recalled with emotion the horrors German imperialism had imposed upon the world. I recently met her when I went to inter- view her for World Magazine. She said, “tell your readers that I greatly admire those in the United States who fight for peace, those who refused to fight in Viet- nam. I hope that your people will be spared what my country and the Soviet Union had to go through. I hope Americans will under- stand that war is the worst evil in the world and will not tolerate new military adven- tures in Indochina or elsewhere.’’ She . told me something about the fearful time of German fascism, about her life with her husband and about her activities in the past 30 years. ‘My life is very closely connected with- Julie’s,’’ Mrs. Fuchik told me. She has an expressive face and ready smile, though _ her voice breaks and her eyes tear when she recalls the horrors of fascism even after all these years. : Her tragic experiences have led her to write two books about her husband’s life as a Communist journalist and a member of the Communist Party’s Central Com- mittee (the books are titled My Life with Julius Fuchik and Memories of Julius Fuchik), and to undertake the ardous task of collecting his journalistic writings. ‘‘I am the only one who knew 90% of his pseudo- nyms,” she said with a smile. ‘In the years between the Munich Treaty in 1938 (when the Western allies agreed to Czechoslo- vakia’s dismemberment) and his arrest in April 1942, he wrote underground arti- cles for many publications, under many names. ‘Notes from the Gallows bas been trans- lated into 90 languages,”’ she told me with pride. ‘‘This includes 37 languages of the Soviet Union, 16 of India, including English, and I recently received a Turkish edition. At present a Portuguese edition is being Cont'd. on pg. 6 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 18, 1975—Page 3 . |