Tag #137158 - Interview #78082 (marietta smolkova)

An illegal Communist movement had existed in Terezin, so after the war many people automatically joined the Communist Party [20] and accepted the Communist ideology. I guess that in all of us there was a certain gratitude towards the Soviet Union for liberating us, but I definitely wasn't all fired up over Communism. In the machine tool department I had one colleague, who was ten years older, wasn't Jewish, but her husband had died in Terezin in the Little Fortress [21]. She lived alone with her daughter and had a boyfriend whose husband had also died in the Little Fortress. She was a party member, I think that she liked me. Once she told me, 'It's not out of the question that the committee will invite you to join the Party. Do what you want, of course, but if you want to preserve at least a bit of freedom, think it over, because otherwise you'll be limited by party discipline.' That was also one of the reasons why I decided to not join the Party.