(NR): How did day-to- day life change for you during the war?
(CR): My mother and I lived alone in an apartment. As the war progressed, food became scarce, especially meat, bread, dairy products, sugar and sweets, which I started to crave quite a bit.
(NR): Did school change …show more content…
for you during the war?
(CR): We all had to participate somewhat in the war effort. For instance, my class had to collect herbs of various kinds, which we had to pick in neighborhood fields and bring to school. We had to dry them on large sheets of paper in the attic of the school—these were then used for teas and other medicinal purposes, for example, chamomile blossoms for tea... We were taught to use only German words-- Hitler forbade foreign words to be used in the German language. Like for example, “FABRIK," Austrian, now changed to “WERK”, meaning factory.
(NR): Were you able to get information about the war during the war?
(CR): Information about the war was tightly controlled by the Nazi authorities. Censured radio communication consisted mostly of propaganda information leaving out any adversity happening around us.
(NR): And how long did the war seem to last?
(CR): I guess, as a child of 12, time seemed to evolve on a different pace as normally perceived by an adult. It appeared to be endless for me.
(NR): How did you feel about the war during the war itself.
(CR): To my recollection, when I first became aware of the changes the war brought about, I became rather frightened and fearful for my life. I had feelings of hopelessness and despair.
(NR): Did you witness any acts of war firsthand?
(CR): Yes, yes, quite a few... For instance, as the war progressed, I witnessed at the railway station of our town, prisoners being contained in railroad box cars which had barred windows... I could see their faces, anguished faces of some of the men. This was quite shocking to me being so young, and the memory of these prisoners locked up in these box cars really did stay with me for a long time. Or sometime later, after one of the daily bombing attacks over the town I lived in, I had uh, returned from a nearby air raid shelter and passed by bombed-out houses... some with shattered windows and others with one side sheared off so one could see into destroyed rooms. Brick rubbles laying all around the ground and people sifting through the rubble of debris to find some of their belongings. Another day, when returning home from the shelter after an air raid, I remember seeing these people in a garden... collecting body parts of a women having been blown to bits and placing them into a wooden crate... Awful, horrible... That day I had to maneuver over mounds of upheaved dirt of what was left of the street that had been ripped open by carpet bombings. I remember starring into an enormous open crater the size of a swimming pool against the concrete... Several days after the liberation by the uuhh, American... Allies, I witnessed the killing of two retreating German soldiers... by some of the inmates of a nearby concentration camp who had been released by the Americans and were lining the street as these soldiers were running for their lives. These two, uuh, young German soldiers were bludgeoned to death with sticks and stones, all so quickly that no sounds were heard of the dying men. All of this was over in minutes.
(NR): Did you know others who were involved with the war?
(CR): Mmh, as I mentioned, my father was drafted into the army right at the beginning of the war. The Nazi war effort called for everybody to participate at the home front and made it mandatory for women to perform labor. My mother, for instance, had to participate in sewing Wehrmachts, which were the uh, army uniforms. My mother had to bring me along since at that time I was too young to be left alone at home. I still remember the sewing activities in a large room that was housed in the then closed city opera house. I could wander about to watch the cutting and sewing of uniforms by many women.
(NR): Did you ever have to leave your home during the war?
(CR): After the liberation of the city, my father thankfully returned safely home from the war. Shortly thereafter, part of the town was given over to the Russian Allies. They needed housing for their officers and their wives. And so our section of the apartment complex where we lived was a given over to them for temporary housing. We had to evacuate our apartment, store our furniture and had to live in separate rooms of neighboring apartments. This created an enormous hardship for my mother especially since she was pregnant with my sister at the time. However, this lasted only for several months and we could return to our apartment to our great relief.
(NR): And I uh, didn't have this question in the interview originally, but I want to ask, was having a mother who was pregnant during the war, was that stressful?
(CR): Definitely, very stressful, because she had had to help move furniture to pack up, and she was well into five months pregnancy. So for her to lift heavy objects was very difficult.
(NR): That.. I didn't know that, but having that during the war must have been frightening.
(CR): No that was right after the war...
(NR): Mmhmm..
(CR): It was right after the war but still warlike, everywhere.
(NR): Did you feel the war end?
(CR): Oh yeah, most definitely. Let's... the air raids and bombing attacks by the American bombers at war end intensified and happened on a daily basis, always during noon hours. And I remember the warning signs of the wailing sirens still ringing in my ears many years after.
(NR): Did, uh, school ever change afterwards?
(CR): Yeah the schools were long closed, and it was not safe to leave the house any longer. During the very last days of the war, the artillery shelling finally had seized. All of the remaining people in the apartment house (mothers, children and an old man-- all the young men had been drafted) were huddled together in the basement. My mother and I slept in one corner of the cellar with blankets covering our shivering bodies... And at at that time, we had only pea soup and awful tasting bread to eat. On May 8, 1945, uuhh... I still remember the day as if it were yesterday, it had become very quiet outside and we all realized that something had happened. We soon saw a large colony of American army panzers and vehicles driving by the apartment building and soon realized that we had been liberated by the American army... and the war was …show more content…
over.
(NR): And this one wasn't a question we went over either, but I'm curious, when you saw the American and Allied troops, were they friendly, were they... were they hospitable?
(CR): They were friendly... In fact uh, later on you saw news reels where these American soldiers threw down gum, chewing gum, and candy and we kids just bounced on them and fought for each little bit on the ground. We were so starved for sweets, so we thought that was a real treat.
(NR): And uh, we can be brisk about this one, but why did you move to the United States?
(CR): Yeah let’s just say, that I immigrated to America in 1955 through sponsorship at the age of 21... to seek a better life for me there.
(NR): How did American troops play a role in the war that you noticed?
(CR): As a fighting unit, the Allied forces bombed Linz during the war and liberated Austria at the end the war in 1945.
(NR): How does living through the war compare to how WWII is depicted in modern media?
(CR): When WWII war started around 1939, the...
television and technology of today, was non-existent... Communication happened mostly through radio and, really, censured newspaper. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party had forcefully annexed Austria to Germany and began to... impose its political and philosophical views on the Austrian people. That was difficult times for a young girl of barely 12-years old... and for everybody else for that matter. Austria recovered slowly after its liberation and only fully developed economically after the Staatsvertrag, which was the uh, I looked this up, the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, the treaty that I think ultimately helped Austria's economy to become
stable.
(NR): Looking back, what do you have to say about the war?
(CR): Well I hope a war such as this one will never happen again... It changed Europe and, for that matter, the world. It is still so... inconceivable to me that Adolf Hitler could have risen to such powers and that his ideas of a German super race, racial cleansing, the annihilation of the Jewish race right, the forceful amassing of foreign territories, to name a few, was enthusiastically embraced by the German people.
(NR): Do you think the effects World War II influence today’s day and age?
(CR): Well, the only thing I can say to that except that Europe has totally recovered and is more prosperous than ever.
(NR): Is there anything to learn from your experience you would like to explain?
(CR): Looking back, I think human beings are resilient and life goes on regardless of adversities and hardships... One can-... can always learn from these and become a better and more tolerant person, I think.
(NR): Are there any questions I did not ask that you would like to expound upon?
(CR): I can't think of any.
(NR): Alright, and with that, I thank you so much for the interview.
(CR): It was my pleasure.