[1] He was a member of the Slovenian Red Cross[2] and he used the position in order to visit Slovenes that had been deported to Serbia during the Second World War.
[3] In early November 1943, he traveled to concentration camps in northern Italy to intervene for the release of prisoners held there.
[4] He started collaborating with the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation in 1944.
[1][5] In the spring of 1947, the Yugoslav authorities arrested him and used him as an incriminating witness in the Nagode Trial,[1] and then released him.
In September 1949 he was arrested again and sentenced to a year of forced labor and pretrial custody.