I resumed my work as a traveling overseer, and later I was invited to organize the printing and distribution of our publications in Poland.

Back then, we used primitive mimeograph machines and wax stencils to duplicate The Watchtower. The quality of our printing was poor, and we had to pay exorbitant prices for paper, which at the time was in short supply. The duplicating had to be done in secluded places, such as barns, basements, and attics. For those who were discovered, the penalty was imprisonment.

I remember a dry well we made use of. In its wall, some 35 feet below ground, was a hatch leading to a small room where we mimeographed the magazines. To get there, we had to be lowered by rope. One day, I was being lowered into the well in a huge wooden bucket when suddenly the rope broke. I fell to the bottom and broke my leg. After a stay in the hospital, I went back to operating the mimeograph machine.

When I was released from prison, I was sent to Poznan to oversee a “bakery,” as we called our secret printeries. By the end of the 1950’s, our printing had greatly improved. We learned how to reduce the size of pages photographically—a milestone in our technology—and to operate Rotaprint offset presses. In 1960 we also began to print and bind books.

When I was eventually released from prison, I was appointed to oversee our printing operations in all of Poland. In 1974, after ten years of avoiding detection, I was tracked down and arrested in Opole.

[Pictures on page 20]

We used a mimeograph machine and later a Rotaprint offset press to print the publications