Josef Dzida joined the Communist Youth Federation in Berlin at the age of 16. After 1933 he joined an illegal group in the workers’ sports club “Fichte,” distributed flyers, and supported comrades living in hiding with money and food ration stamps. In 1942 and 1943 he was denounced and arrested by the Gestapo on the accusation of being an anti-Nazi and a Jew. He falsely claimed to be a “2nd grade Mischling” and was released in the fall of 1943, on condition of reporting to the Gestapo every day and proving his ancestry within four weeks. During this period, on November 22, 1943, the Gestapo headquarters on Burgstraße was hit in an air raid and Dzida went into hiding. An acquaintance from his former neighborhood, Martha Krösche, took him into her home in the Kreuzberg district. Being in charge of a grocery store, she was also able to supply him with food.
When Krösche’s building was hit in an air raid in February 1945, Dzida found refuge with Max Schmiedecke in Zeesen near Königs Wusterhausen until his liberation.