WWII Resistance

Giovannina Caleffi aka Giovanna Berneri
Born Gualtieri, Italy 4 May 1897, Died Genova Nervi, Italy 14 March 1962

The following pages describe succinctly the activities of the "Third Camp" internationalist nuclei in France during World War II. We do not know of any comprehensive study of this subject.

Alfons Thomasz Pilarski a.k.a Alfons Kompardt
Born Upper Silesia, Germany 1902. Died Warsaw, Poland 1977

Alfons Thomasz Pilarski (alias Kompardt) was born in Upper Silesia, a part of Germany with a 30% minority of Poles, on 6th July 1902, the son of a working class family in Leschnitz near Stehlitz.

Antonio Casanova was born at Betanzas in the Coruna province of Galicia in northern Spain on 7th June 1898.

Silvano Fedi
Born 25 April 1920 - Pistoia, Italy, died 29 July 1944 - Italy

French youth against the Nazis

A short history of the Andartiko - the Greek Resistance partisans who fought against Italian and German fascist occupation.
[b]Its radical, democratic working class spirit was only put down after the Allied victory, by British forces and the Greek ruling class.

Forgotten Heroes

Following the destruction of the Hungarian anarchist movement by the fascist regime of Admiral Horthy, anarchist groups began to re-emerge around the veteran libertarian called Torockoi, who was 80 years old in 1945. The first libertarian action was against occupying German forces by an anarchist student group.

The rattle of the Thompson gun

Hitler’s power may lay us low,
And keep us locked in chains,
But we will smash the chains one day,
We’ll be free again
We’ve got fists and we can fight,
We’ve got knives and we’ll get them out
We want freedom, don’t we boys?
We’re the fighting Navajos!

Manol Vassev
Born Jordan Sotirov, 1898 - Kustendil, Bulgaria, died 12 March 1958 - Sliven prison, Bulgaria

An extract of Stuart Christie's book Granny Made Me An Anarchist which describes his involvement in an attempt to assassinate Spanish dictator General Franco. He describes his experiences from picking up the plastic explosive in France to his arrest by Franco's police in Spain. This extract first appeared in The Guardian newspaper on Monday August 23, 2004

[2,000 words]

All the leaflets published by the White Rose group of anti-fascists in Germany, including other documents and texts related to the group

Transcript of a short interview with Walter Mayer, a member of the German youth anti-Nazi organisation, the Edelweiss Pirates.

Patchy historical information about the activity of some anarchists - revolutionary and pacifist - in France during World War II and under occupation.

The Workers' Opposition in Nazi Germany

By Tim Mason
History Workshop Journal # 11, Spring 1981

I want to begin with a distinction - the distinction between the political resistance of the German working class to nazi rule, and what I want to call the workersí opposition.

Celso Persici
Born 1895 - Italy, died 15 September 1988 - Nice, France

Paul Zorkine
Born 1921 - Montenegro, died September 1962 - France