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interview // german // 2:51 Min // 15.06.2008
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I was not at home. I was at the neighbour’s. When the neighbour saw that the Gestapo went to our house, she hid us in an outhouse and warned us: “Please, don’t look out of the window and stay quiet.” But us as children, we didn’t understand that and didn’t keep quiet. We kept looking out of the window to see what was going on until we saw that they were marching our family and relatives off. Only then did we realize that there was danger. We did get frightened then. They came to the neighbour’s house after that and there was an argument in the yard, and we were frightened that they would take the neighbour, as well, and deport her. That went on for a long time, at least an hour until it went quiet again. That was when the neighbour came with the baby and said we could come out now. It was such a relief that she came to us. I don’t know what would have happened, if we – little children – would have stayed on our own. The oldest one was six, then three years, four years and I was five years old.
A cousin of mine had stayed at home. She was suffering with a contagious infection, scabies. The Gestapo saw that and did not take her, because they were frightened of being infected. She also stayed behind. So, she came to the neighbour’s and we were also there. The neighbour said that we could not stay with her, because she had five children of her own and she was alone with them, as well. They had taken the oldest daughter, the farmer girl and the farmer away.
On that day, when they arrested our family, they arrested so many people that a horse stable near Eisenkappel was full. From there they took them away in lorries to Klagenfurt and from there to various concentration camps. Even my godfather, the neighbour, did not come back. He died in Dachau, but his daughter and the farmer girl did come back. They were the only ones who came back from the concentration camp.
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