My maternal grandmother was from Vienna. Being Jewish, she had to flee before the Anschluss for the UK. I find it strange that if not for the Nazis, I would never exist. There's got to be a joke in there somewhere... Family history aside, Austria is a lovely country - although I always end up quite a bit fatter after going there. Must be the fault of the (compared to south England) cheap beer, Schnitzel, Gulaschsuppe, Semmel, Würstl, Blunzngröstl...
My mother was born in Vienna as my grandmother was leaving on a boat to come to America. One of our great-aunts came over this past summer and told some incredible stories of the past. German artillery set on the family farm pointed to the valley below...having to sneak back into your own house to gather belongings during occupation by German soldiers...coming home from school and being strafed by aerial machine gun fire because they'd shoot at anything that was moving, including school children. I guess my mother as a baby was crying from hunger because they ran out of food on the cargo boat to America, and a kind woman gave my grandmother some money to buy food for her upon landing. Crazy stuff. Don't even get me started on the food. I'll take homemade spaetzle with some paprika chicken. I'm still trying to recreate the recipes of my grandparents. Shame I was too young to care before they passed.
Wow, that's quite a story. I'm afraid I don't know any from my family. My grandmother died when I was quite young. I don't really remember her as anyone other than someone who occasionally appeared on family trees and old black and white photographs. Another piece of history: family trees and old Nazi records show that my great-grandfather died in Treblinka* of "natural causes". A few years ago I went to visit Sachsenhausen as part of a school trip. They said that the Nazis often put down "natural causes" on the death certificates of Jewish people who had been killed in the camps - presumably so that they could cover up the genocide. After all, if they just destroyed the death certificates then they'd still have to explain how all those people died. So we have no way of actually knowing how he died. The evidence was probably burned, or swept under the carpet of history in some other way. EDIT: I looked it up, it was Auschwitz not Treblinka.
Also, "natural causes" could be euphemism for some combination of starvation, disease, exposure, and exhaustion, of which many, many people died in the camps in addition to the death chambers. Do you know which camp he was in? They had a great documentary on PBS at the time of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In it, they said that there were two camps at Treblinka, one was more of a pure death camp and the other a slave labor camp. Knowing which one he died in would probably give more insight into how he was killed.
I have found a page with the Jewish side of my family's geneology, by the way. My grandma was Ilse Hirsch, so by that reckoning my great grandfather died in Auschwitz (not Treblinka - I think I got it mixed up with Theresienstadt, where many other relatives of mine died).
Wow. Do you have any older family members you can have over for dinner and drinks to tell old stories? From talking to my relative who I never see, I learned so much about how my mother and grandparents came over, and what their lives were like. I recorded it all. I tried to make one of my younger cousins sit down and listen. He's a young teen and just couldn't really care less. He's addicted to Call of Duty and I was trying to get him to listen to the experiences of someone who literally ran from machine gun fire as a school child of the same age and who's bed was occupied by soldiers. Uphill battle I swear O_o
I tell you, I was exactly like that kid when I was younger. Although I do vaguely remember writing an essay about my grandmother for a primary school history class, which my teacher and family were rather proud of. I am just wondering how to ask my grandpa - I haven't really expressed an interest in family history and everything else before... Certainly worth a try! That is a crazy juxtaposition, though. A kid idly playing a video game where the objective is to shoot at the folks who were shooting at the person who was talking to him at the time. Gosh.
| I am just wondering how to ask my grandpa - I haven't really expressed an interest in family history and everything else before... Certainly worth a try!| Do it while you can :) He is one of the strongest connections to your familial past you have. It is hard to predict when you are young the value that that may hold for you in the future, when it may be to late.