3. Vienna

We are what we are because we have been what we have been_

(Andre Tridon: ”Introduction”, Sigmund Freud: Dream Psychology: Psychoanalyses for Beginners. NY 1921)

I was still a little girl when my father took me to the Museum for Natural History. Afterwards, the two of us walked through the center of Vienna back home. We passed Rudolfspark on its North Western edge. Whenever I have passed this spot since, I came to think of that day long gone: A few men are standing in our way, chatting. As we pass, they step aside and tip their hats. My father does so likewise. I curiously ask him: „Who are they? Where do you know them from?“ The answer comes like a shot from a gun: „From Egypt.“ What did that mean? My father had never been to Egypt, that much I knew. It took years before I realised that Egypt was my father's euphemism for Jewish matters, a subject he obviously was uncomfortable with. Is that the reason why they also were problematic for me?

Where Vienna begins_

We were standing on a huge empty square, dust and sunshine around, and two enormous, snorting animals that scare me. Animals still scare me. However, there is also this joyful reunion with my daddy, who picks me up and spins me around. My little nose twitches with recognition and pleasure. Someone puts me up on the carriage, together with the luggage, next to my mother who has my little sister on her lap. My father climbs up to sit next to the coachman. We drive along wide roads, passing shattered houses. My father turns to face my mother: “There was no other transport available. Things are difficult in Vienna. I have found work but no place to live yet. We can stay with an old friend of mine from before the war until we find a place. He’s renting us two rooms.”

Was that in German? Or in English? It’s not that I remember details, I just recall the gist of the words. Everything is new to me. To my parents everything is different from what they left behind years earlier. They point and comment. The damage from bombings is obvious. The town looks grey and dreary – and stays that way for several years ahead until a time I remember well. Looking at photographs today, I get proof of the damages. What a contrast to modern-day Vienna, which has become a jewel in the crown!

There was a severe housing shortage, I can read to-day, and a fight for every square metre: returning soldiers, former concentration camp prisoners, victims of air raids, returning emigrés and millions of refugees from Eastern Europe competed for the limited living spaces available. A quarter of the city's buildings was destroyed when the Germans were finally defeated in the offensive of March and April 1945. More than 180,000 homes were uninhabitable. Industry, the food supply and the bridges over the Danube were also destroyed.

My parents spent more than a year looking for a home of their own. There was not only a housing shortage but also a lack of food. According to my mother, those who had returned from abroad faced different conditions than permanent residents who often had relatives in the country side who helped out with food supplies; and the small local retailing shops favoured their regular costumers and not the newcomers. But that was not my problem. My family occasionally received parcels from relatives abroad containing clothes and tinned foods. I hated the clothes because they were so different from what other children wore, but I was excited when we received canned goods. Sweetened condensed milk and green lime jelly were my favourites; how I loved licking both. This tiny piece of memory makes me smile so many years later and gives me a feeling of happiness. My mother was afraid of food shortage and hoarded cans in a dark cupboard for so long that sometimes the lids would lift and explode. It makes me laugh overbearingly today, but it surely was a sign of her having experienced uncertainty and hunger earlier in life.

In these early days in Vienna, my mother went to see the apartment where she had lived before the war. She saw her family’s curtains hanging in front of a neighbours’ window. And when she visited an old school friend, her father’s paperweight stood on their desk. But everybody denied the connection. Mom also met a former teacher who asked how her parents were doing. She said that they hadn’t survived, to which the teacher replied: “No, I can’t believe it. Can that really be true?” My mother was deeply disappointed over these first encounters.

The first years after the war were definitely not easy for any of us. I surely had my own challenges, the adults had theirs. My sister, no doubt, had hers. She was a little devil, although she looked like an angel. She bullied me whenever she had the chance. I was told not to hit her because she was so frail. But she was jealous, I believe. In 1948, for instance, my mother’s sister Lizzi visited us from the States together with her husband Irwin. They had an extraordinary present for me: a doll with ‘real’ hair! I loved the doll and I loved uncle Irwin. My little sister instantly tore the doll out of my hand and smashed it against the sofa so it lost its scalp and its curly hair. The doll was beyond repair, and I never ever wanted a doll again. My sister kept acting jealous at certain occasions throughout the decades of my life but she also is my life witness, and we had many good experiences together, then, and good talks about our childhood home and the world around us, later.

Early impressions that stayed with me_

I was just a little girl taking things as they were. There are glimpses of a tiny room with two cots, the room being little bigger than a storage room. Dad is telling a story about a wolf with disguised voice through the open door; there was no room for him inside. What language the wolf spoke, I do not recall. There also is a vague memory of walking around the corner to visit an elderly couple: my father’s sister’s husband’s parents….

Soon, my mother took me to a small, private preschool on the quay across Augarten bridge that specialised in taking in children of refugees who had returned from exile and teach them German. In my mind's eye there is this intimidating entrance door that is very, very high, very, very white, and has a shiny brass door handle far above my head. The leader’s name is Tante Mini, a name that sounded like my English care mother’s name Minnie. Did I make the connection? Was that why I found the door so intimidating? Or had I already divided my life into an English and an Austrian world, in which these names existed without coexisting? I find this disturbing as it reveals a thing or two about the nature of memories. Today, I acknowledge the coincidental facts of my two Minies/Minnies with astonishment but there is no emotional connection whatsoever.

The preschool had two coincidental consequences: later, when I started in secondary school in Vienna’s centre at the age of ten, auntie Mini's son, Christian, started with me, and we became friends. And some twenty years later, Mini unexpectedly turned out to be the head of my own son's kindergarten. Coincidences of this kind pique my curiosity: I see them as worthy of attention, as something that gives life an added meaning; although I have no idea what that meaning should be other than increased awareness.

Another notable consequence of attending this preschool was that I no longer wanted to express myself in English. I found out that English, for many in Vienna, was the language of the enemy; those who spoke English were outsiders. I didn’t want to be different or even ridiculous. My mother tried to maintain my English by singing songs and arranging doll parties in English, but I firmly refused to participate. Whenever someone tried to involve me in English communication, I would start screaming, I would crawl under the table and pound the floor with my fists.

Much later, as an adult, I was long convinced that I couldn’t speak English, even in situations when I used the language, and despite my ability to observe and think. It sounds absurd, but reality played tricks on my brain. In the 1970s, I lived in England for a while, I taught languages to an English audience, and at the same time I could not remember English words when I went to the bakery to buy bread. Clearly, there was a difference between the grown-up English I used when teaching and my disturbed children’s English I used when shopping.

In autumn 1947 my parents, together with us children, finally had the chance to move into a flat in a tree-storey house that had been used as Soviet barracks during the first after-war years. It was located in a working-class district in the Soviet occupation zone, and it was desolate. The worst for me was a hole in the floor of the WC, covered by a narrow wooden board. I had to balance on it while looking down into an horrendous abyss which terrified me. Also, windows in the hall were covered with planks not glass. One room was uninhabitable due to a hole in the ceiling after a bomb. But all this was soon repaired. I have no memory of repairmen walking in and out, though.

What I do know is that the flat was large and noisy. The children’s room overlooked a bumpy main street with trams and lorries jolting over cobblestones from very early in the morning, something I found extremely disturbing. More comforting were the many children living in our house. We mostly played in the spacious backyard, which was surrounded by sheds where various craftsmen worked. From today’s perspective everything looked shabby but to us kids it was paradise. The Danube was not far away, so were parks, meadows with water-filled bomb craters, abandoned allotments and many ruins in which to play.

Our house was full of refugees who’d come from England, the Soviet Union, the Sudetenland and East Prussia. As a little girl I had no idea that any of us were refugees, but I was aware of the variety of peoples’ origins and attitudes. This gave me an early insight into what the world had to offer. One girl would sing antisemitic songs and dance around me. When my mother found out she screamed “Nazi_”_ at the mocking girl’s mother. I knew what a Nazi was but not what a Jew was. Nevertheless, all the children in our house played together. Children don’t have to be alike to play together. We weren’t.

After her return to Vienna, my mother enrolled in courses to make up for her missed out high school diploma, and qualify as a teacher. The first was a success, the second was not: she told us about her unruly pupils. She didn't have any talent to discipline youngsters, she stated herself. She then got involved with a left-wing theatre, the Scala, and arranged meetings with actors in factories and public places. Often actors would visit her in our home, which gave me the pleasure of meeting them and also visit their theatre regularly. One of the actors, Emil Stöhr, was my mother’s favorite.

Mom was filled with a desire to study. That had not been possible in England, but her difficult beginnings notwithstanding, she soon enrolled full-time at university, in German Studies. Despite the fact that lecture halls still were unheated, and the professors mostly taught old fashioned German things rather than Austrian ones, and many were Naziprofessors, she enjoyed learning. That’s what she once told an interviewer (Kampl-Müller p.38). She didn’t finish at the time, but managed to fulfill her dream later in life, many years after I had left my childhood home. In 1975, she published her thesis on Free Masonry in Josephine Austria and the origins of the Austrian nation. She then became a recognized researcher and author.

We children especially enjoyed her activities at International peace conferences in the beginning of the 1950s, where she functioned as voluntary interpreter and was in charge of groups from abroad, because she often invited groups home. In this way we met both black writers from Martinique and yellow ones from China. She praised her meetings with the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and the Soviet writers Ilya Ehrenburg and Boris Polevoy, names that have stuck with me.

While my mother was studying or working, she hired help to take care of domestic chores and to look after me and my little sister. Most of these women were likeable, however some scared me. The worst was an elderly woman, Frau H., who had worked as a housekeeper in a large manor house in Silesia before the war. She probably didn’t like looking after the children of a poor Jewish family. I hated her attempts to discipline me with threats, and to turn me into an obedient girl. It didn’t work – her efforts made me hate her. Then there was a very young woman, A., who had come straight from the countryside needing a place to live and work. I loved her. To my regret, my parents felt that she needed an education and more serious work and helped her find both, so she had to leave us. The best for us children was Frau S., the caretaker of our block of flats. She was the kindest person of our childhood. She had never had the chance to go to school herself and admired me because I could spell even difficult words. She told me about her tough life as an illegitimate child and her early work in charity kitchens and on farms. I trusted her completely, she knew almost everything about me. She helped me with many of my early challenges with my mother. Perhaps she is the reason I have remained sane? It makes me sad to see that my mother described her more distant: “I left the children largely to Mrs. S, who looked after them satisfactorily, dressed them in the morning, kept their clothes in order and fulfilled all practical functions (Kampl-Müller, s. 57).”

My father was the one to earn the necessary money. There was a shortage of qualified people at the time when many had been killed or injured while in the army, and others had not yet returned from war captivity. It was also an advantage for my father that the occupying forces had reservations to employ former Nazis. Having been educated as an engineer and having worked in a metal goods factory in England, he was offered a temporary job as public administrator of a metal goods factory in the Soviet zone near Vienna_._ He was now on the other side of the class divide, which bothered him, but he said it implied, that he needed to be a benevolent leader. As a passionate skier my father had the idea that the factory could ​​produce ski bindings. I have inherited a contract that states that he will earn 5% of every produced ski binding. The bindings became world famous under the name Tyrolia without my father getting a penny. He always told us that he was not interested in making money, except for what was necessary to support a family. For many years to come, he gave away half of his income to what he perceived as socially beneficial causes. Ideology determined much of what he did. Communist ideals and social recognition meant much more to him than economy. When in later years money began to interest him, the contract was long obsolete.

He held this job for five years. Afterwards he struggled for three years with short time contracts. Every time he got a new job, he took me along to see his new office or factory. I am really grateful for it because it showed me how diverse the working environments were and how different the products he had to handle were. I felt taken serious, and everybody we met was extremely kind to me. Of course, they were, I was a very cute child.

During this difficult period without steady work for my father, my mother left her studies to work with book editions and translations at a left-wing publishing house (Globus Verlag). Known intellectuals worked as editors promoting high-quality literature, among others works of Howard Fast, Jorge Amado and Martin Andersen Nexø. Mom brought home wonderful children’s books, including books written by the prize-winning Austrian author Karl Bruckner (Die Spatzenelf; Giovanna und der Sumpf; Pablo der Indio). They were all published while my mother worked at Globus. Erich Kästner was a favourite author of mine at an early age like he was for most kids my age. My mother took me to a public reading of him, where I queued to get his signature in one of my books. My mother always made sure that we read books that she approved as quality books. She was kean on literature in general, and from an early age on read ballads by J.W.v.Goethe and Friedrich Schiller to us instead of fairy tales.

While still a small child, I was sent away on sleepover holiday camps, together with my little sister. The first camp I remember vaguely was in Trieste, Italy. I was four and a half, my sister was only two years old. I was often called in when the staff had problems with my sister. I often had to be responsible for my sister, not only on camps but also when visiting friends. Sometimes it was pleasant to have her around, often it was a nuisance. But my major memory of the Italian camp, was a large field of bright red poppies just outside the window. What a delightful view! Poppies in Italy normally bloom in May, so I read. Maybe it was in May 1947? While sorting out my mother’s old letters after her death, I found a postcard from Trieste bearing a short note written by some caretaker. There was an address written on it, which I looked up online. To my astonishment it appears to have been a Jewish camp.

We also were in a Jewish camp in the vicinity of Vienna before I started in school. I know because I found a photograph of the place with a Star of David. The girl standing next to me is Lili who years later became my most intimate friend. The Jewish part of my upbringing, which I discovered late, surprises me, because we did not live a Jewish life at all. There were never held any Jewish holidays in our home. I didn’t know anything Jewish, while I remember Christmas being held since we moved into our own flat in 1947. The only recollection except those early camps I have of something Jewish, is from a later time when my parents signed out of the community because they could not afford the membership. One day, there was an official seal on our door, and my mother took me to the public pawnshop to deliver her wedding ring as collateral for a loan so they could pay the debt. It was not because they were poor, but it was due to some conflict they had with the community because my father gave away half of his salary, and the community charged him for the whole lot anyway. It was surprising enough for me to remember.

Our family was leftist. Both my parents originally came from social-democratic families, and the right-wing extremist years of the 1930s and 40s pushed them further to the left. We didn't have to face the same challenges as the general population did but we also lived on the other side of the ditch by participating in communist organisations. My parents were party members, and we children were members of the party’s youth organisations. What has stayed with me from that time are close friends and catchy workers’ songs.

School years_

I loved school. There were so many new things to learn. In primary school, I enjoyed that things were presented in a systematic way: from how we were tought the alphabet to how we learned about the world, beginning with the streets around the school, continuing with our district, followed by the city, and finally Austria, our country. Systematic learning still appeals to me. I didn’t like, and wasn’t good at, such subjects as handicrafts and PE, but everything else felt just great. I only got good grades, all A’s. I had no idea how the other girls were doing, at least not until one day, I realised that there were differences. I had answered a question on irregular verbs which others couldn’t answer. Our teacher sent me around to other classes so I could tell them about it. I found that embarrassing because my answer had been purely coincidental. It didn't occur to me that I had done anything unusual. The only thing the situation tought me was that bragging was not to my liking. On the contrary, it felt shameful.

When we were about to finish Year 4, it turned out that only three from my class qualified for middle school, the academic secondary school. This really took me by surprise. There were probably social reasons for this result as we were the only four that did not come from a poor working-class or single mothers’ background. Single mothers were quite common in those years because many men had not returned from war. The four of us had to do an entrance exam to be accepted in a new shool which would allow for later university studies. All the other girls would continue in a normal secondary school which ended at the age of 14. They would then have to work, whereas we could continue school and study.

Before leaving primary school my class teacher warned me: “You’ll have to control your temper when you start in a new school.” I was surprised, what did she mean? Bit by bit, a few situations came to my mind. In first grade a CARE package had reached our school and was taken from class to class; every class received a part of the contents. Families missed everything so whatever presents there were they meant happyness. Inside the package were sanitary goods; every single girl in my girls-only class was handed out an American toothbrush. Every girl except me. There weren’t enough of them. I couldn’t understand, why it was me who didn’t receive one. It was unfair, I thought. I grumbled. The teacher tried to console me by saying that I probably had one at home. I did, but I didn’t have the imagination to realise that other girls did not. I was deeply disappointed, and showed it, because I was excluded.

There was another day at school a couple of years later, when we were to imitate mothers’ laundry day. Each girl had brought her own doll and pretended to wash and iron. It probably should teach us some skills. I didn’t have a doll. I found it idiotic; I was furious. I sat down at the back of the classroom and shut myself off from the rest of the class. When our teacher begged me for the umpteenth time to be so kind and join them, I completely lost my senses and threw my satchel across the entire classroom in rage. It fell down close to our teacher. I was so upset that I got up and left school in tears. I don’t remember any reaction from the school or my parents.

Yet another event came to my mind: one Saturday I was locked up in our classroom when everyone else left for the weekend. I was convinced that they had forgotten me and that I would have to spend the entire weekend at school. I screamed my head off. I don’t know the reason for confining me or how I escaped; I only remember my anxiety and my fury.

So probably my teacher was right: I needed to learn to control myself. Possibly it was the first time it dawned on me that I had a choice; that I could walk one way or the other.

I passed the entrance exame and started middle school. School was no longer 100 m down the road but in the center of Vienna, on the other side of the Danube. I had to take two trams, and then walk. To begin with it took an hour to get to school. In my new class were three other children, who were born in the UK. Maybe our parents, who knew each other from the Austrian Centre in London, had talked about which school to choose? It felt good no longer to be the odd one out. It was also good that it was a mixed class; we were 7 or 8 girls and some 25 boys. Our class consisted of an English and a Russian language group. Austria was special in this respect. While other parts of Europe were divided into two blocks by the Iron Curtain, in Austria people lived together. Vienna consisted of four sections defined by the four occupying forces. Therefore, Russian, English and French were (almost) equal choices as first foreign school languages.

The new thing was that I wasn’t among the best students anymore; there were some really good, hardworking, ambitious, and intelligent students in our class. Most of our professors were uninspiring, though. They lectured, and we were to copy what they said. Except inlanguages, where we had to learn vocabulary by heart. I liked maths the most, because we had a dedicated teacher, my favourite. He really wanted us to understand maths, also the girls. I also liked Latin and Russian. I did absolutely not like biology and chemistry because these teachers thought girls to be disinterested or stupid. I liked school as such, however. I preferred it to home.

My class was also made up of equal numbers of Catholics, Protestants and non-believers; and left-wingers, right-wingers, and a large group in between. I knew such divisions from the house I lived in, but in school they resulted in committed discussions on political issues of all kinds, be it the Second World War, the uprising in Hungary, the role of the Russian and American occupiers, etc. It started when we were only 10 years old, when a Handicrafts teacher read aloud from booklets for German soldiers, while we worked. I should explain that professors who had been members of the NSdAP were not allowed to teach other subjects than Handicrafts and PE. Therefore, these were precisely the subjects that were taught in a nearly military-style manner and that were characterized by content that was not always neutral. To say it mildly. The left-right split forced everyone from early on to defend their opinion. It was a rather serious split, that shaped us. We knew who stood on which end of each wing but we had no real knowledge of individual families’ attitudes during the war that had just ended. Contrary to what one might believe, we made friends across the dividing lines. There was a genuine class identity. Most of us have been meeting almost every year since then and enjoyed it.

Did I learn to control my temper during those eight years of secondary school? I can’t say. What I do know, is that for some years I had hellish rows during break time with a girl who had once been a close friend. We would fight on the floor in the middle of our classroom, and end up with tufts of hair in our hands. Or at least I did. It was quite serious. For both of us. I no longer know what the dispute was about, though. Nor do I remember the reasons for yet another conflict I had; one of the boys in my class refused to talk to me for several years, he even refused to share roles with me in drama classes. I suspect he felt betrayed because I seemed to get along with boys who bullied him.

This politically pluralistic background challenged my curiosity for decades after we left school. Hardly anybody in school spoke about the role their parents had played in the war. There was so much silence, or better: concealment. It was not legitimate to talk ‘about it’ for any of us, to claim one’s fate especially when it concerned death. Nearly all of our teachers had also served in the German army. We couldn’t avoid asking them about their involvement, and it was easy to notice different reactions to their narration. We roughly knew who came from a family that celebrated the fall of the German army, and who came from a family that mourned this crucial event. But not more.

Forty years after our final exams, I still needed to understand what families my classmates came from. I chose to conduct in-depth anthropological interviews about their background with all of them. It took me two years before I was through. It turned out that quite a few came from pro-Hitler homes, who had been anti-Semitic during the war. I had the secret hope that at least some of my former schoolmates would express regret about what had happened to the Jewish families, that it all was a misunderstanding. But no. All but one defended the doings of their fathers, probably out of respect or love. I do not know whether these fathers had done anything criminal. If they did, and their children knew about it, it can’t have been easy to live with, I think. The interviews were relatively easy because we knew each other so well, but friendship aside, I found some of the interviews really difficult to conduct. On the other hand, I needed to finish something that has bothered me for a long time, to round it off, to clarify things for myself, and thereby explore my own identity.

In 2005, the book with the interviews was published. It provides an ethnographic picture of a school class in post-war Vienna (Unsere Schulklasse. Erwachsen werden nach dem Krieg/Our school class. Growing up after the war, 2005). I could recognize myself in the universe of our classroom, and I discovered that the act of concealing implied a lack of recognition. Actually, I felt that if I should be able to tell the story of my grandparents, then others should be able to make their history known, too. It wasn't possible when we went to school; I expected that it would be possible fourty years later. Many admitted their family’s fate and opinions but did not excuse anything. Originally, the book was supposed to be just one more item on my resume, but it turned into a crisis of identities, not the least mine.

School years are important because they cover the years of maturing. I had two remarkable teachers who shaped my morals: my primary school teacher taught me to value knowledge and social consideration. And self-control. At secondary school it was my math teacher who boosted my morals by insisting on decency and good values; he was especially outspoken on treating others correctly. He wouldn’t let us go on a trip unless we made it possible for those who were too poor to pay to come along, too. He encouraged good students to help those who were less fortunate, and he seriously discouraged all upper-class attitudes and bragging. When we were 11-12 years old, he arranged for family groups from different political backgrounds to go on Sunday excursions together. It was on one of these trips that I first met a father from a right-wing family that once had been part of a wealthy German minority in Slovakia but had to flee and ended in extremely poor conditions in Vienna. I realised that there were people who felt victimised on all sides. This was new to me, and I assume he found my background equally novel.

In May 1955, when I was in 7th grade, the four occupying powers agreed to withdraw from Austria. The country was supposed to become an independent, democratic State. My father took me along for the celebration and explained everything that happened. He sat me on his shoulders so I had a chance to see the foreign ministers of the four Allies, John F. Dullas of the US, Vyacheslav Molotov from the Soviet Union, Harold Macmillan from the UK and Antoine Pinay from France step out onto the balcony of Belvedere Castle. Leopold Figl, the Foreign Minister of Austria showed the document of the State Treaty to the masses and called out loudly: “Austria is free!” What a cheerful crowd it was in the packed garden of the palace. Everyone was laughing and clapping and cheering. Austrian society had taken one deep breath. In and out. In the following months, the armies of the occupiers vanished from our streets, the Soviets were the last to disappear on October 26 of that year. This day has been Austria’s national day ever since.

I don’t know if there is a connection between the two occurrences but that same year my father finally found a job that would define him in the decades to come. He became Managing Director of a company that imported coal from Poland to sustain the Austrian industry. He soon turned into an internationally respected coal expert with a salary above average. He made sure we knew that he paid his employees well, and treated them with respect. He made friends with many of his business partners, both Austrian and Polish, and invited them to restaurants and on skiing holidays. Over time, my parents came to live a life of privilege – with a spill over effect on me.

Without a doubt, many people have influenced me; first of all my parents, but also close friends. However, also encounters with people, who were hostile, made their impact. I was less influenced by my youth organisations, as they hardly added new ideas. From age six until seventeen, I attended communist youth groups, albeit with some interruptions. What mattered most was spending time with like-minded. There existed a multitude of youth organisations in post-war Vienna, and most young people were members in one or the other. The many organisations were seen as a counter-movement to previous years when all young people had been forced to join the one and only Hitler Youth_._ Children attended Social-democratic, Catholic, Protestant or right-wing groups. They were diverse but similar in form: all met weekly, songs were sung, one hiked, lit campfires, took part in sporting competitions and heard lectures according to age and political orientation. As far as I remember, my groups dealt with the Third World, Socialism, Austrian history and the history of workers’ struggles.

We also had the chance to participate in leadership courses. I came to lead a group of children at a summer camp for a month, when I was 14 years old. I was supposed to assist an experienced leader who never turned up, so I was alone with six 10-year-olds. I loved to braid the girls’ hair, and they liked it, but there were serious problems with a boy who behaved extremely provoking. When he started throwing stones at the girls, I punished him with a slap. I wasn’t proud of myself, we had been told never to do that, but I had to manage these kids all alone and felt let down, even taken advantage of, by the adults. It all turned out positively, as the boy behaved friendly after the slap and his parents were grateful that I got their difficult son under control. Later, when I was 17, I chaired a group of youngsters for some time once a week in a working-class district. This was a challenging task, too. I wanted to offer meaningful content while those who visited the club preferred to dance, play ping-pong and cuddle. I managed to show some films about other countries and comment them, I tried, I managed, but not for long. If they didn’t like what I could offer with enthusiasm, it was not me to insist against their will. I think this attitude has stayed with me.

Other political events influenced me during my school years. A year after Austria had reached souvereignty again in 1955, an uprising broke out across the border in Hungary; they too wanted more liberty. We followed the development closely and daily on the radio. I was nearly 14 years old in October, 1956 and went to demonstrations against the upheavel together with friends, while others from our class engaged on the other side. In these days school life was defined by discussions, squabbels and rows. Every single day in school we had heated discussions pro and con Hungarians. It was quite shocking to listen to the harsh hostile language from school friends. We had had discrepancies before, but now the contradictions reached a new quality. On this background, it is even more surprising that our class kept contact throughout all the years that have passed regardless of political views.

The revolt in Hungary was soon crushed by Soviet troops which changed everything for us: we stopped discussing. From November onwards, more than 180,000 Hungarians fled from their country and came to Vienna, which could be reached on foot within one long day. For a short period, Hungarians were everywhere in town, also in every school, we also had one in my class. We were asked to help the new students in various subjects. I was assigned to study Russian with our Hungarian guest student, which he, of course, hated. He thought that leaving Hungary, he would never have anything to do with Russian anymore. He soon changed to another school, another place.

To begin with, Austrians were very positive towards the refugees but this changed over time, mainly because the refugees had expectations which Austria could not meet. Just to give one example from our reality: our snack breads were collected in big baskets to be distributed to Hungarians who threw them away; they looked too much alike the food they had been used to. They had been promised paradise in the West, white bread with butter and ham, but Austria was still poor in the mid-1950s, and so were our snacks. Butter and ham were for the few. There was diasappointment on both sides. Most of the refugees who lived in camps, moved on, mostly to USA.

The most important thing to me during my school years was that I met people from all walks of life, as well as from diverse politics and ethics. This has been of great importance to my later life. It added to my political awareness that I exchanged long letters with a cousin in Israel my age who informed me in detail about the problems it caused her to be from a mixed Jewish and Christian Palestinian family; they had to move from Haifa to Beirut and back again and lost everything they owned. We also hosted my American cousins for a period while their parents got divorced. Through them I learned about life in the USA, also the extremist Ku Klux Klan. The most exotic for me, though, was that these cousins only knew colored milk and abhorred that white fluid we drank and served.

In my later adolescent years, literature was of importance. With great pleasure I read Legends of Classical Antiquity on the Argonauts, Ödipus, Troja and Aeneas; The fates of Medea and Iphigenia fascinated me the most, and I was lucky to see them represented on Viennese stages several times. Another focus point in my readings was justice. Several authors could make me disappear behind a book. There were the novels of the Scottish writer A.J. Cronin about extreme social injustices in the UK; there were the works of Jakob Wassermann who wrote about injustice in Germany, and Lion Feuchtwanger who mostly wrote about cosmopolitan interpretations of historical topics. At some point I read with interest Soviet novels. They were all about heroes, their deeds and their enemies, exciting to read but they conveyed to me the depressing insight that I am anything but a hero. I wouldn’t die for an ideology, that much I knew. Neither would I report anyone to superiors. These books made me feel shameful. I have tried to read a few of these novels again in later years, but found them trashy and sometimes even repulsive. Together with a friend I immersed in the French existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir instead of. My greatest reading excitement in my school years came however from the critical works of Austrian writer Karl Kraus; I admired, and still admire, his insights into language, his humour, his sharp critique.

It was not only books that took my time, I also loved music and regularly went to classical concerts; there were superb concert halls in Vienna such as Musikverein and Konzerthaus. Also jazz clubs were to my liking, especially together with male friends. Fatty George, an eminent clarinettist, in Fatty’s Saloon, is one I remember with pleasure – together with the Gin Fizz, my first alcohol, a mandatory drink in clubs at the time. I also danced in Kursalon, a music hall in Stadtpark, with a guy from my class who danced magnificently and led me through classical Viennese waltzes and tangos. Of course, we also went to parties and carnivals, I simply loved to dance. It makes me smile to think back to those experiences.

I have been thinking about whether I had any ideas or expectations for adult life at the time, because this topic is often brought up in interviews. I don’t think so. I surely didn’t expect a certain career, but I probably wanted to be of use to other people; I also wanted to become economically independent; I disliked to see my mother constantly having to beg for money. I understand my father’s restraint because my mother was boundless in her demands which included expensive new houshold appliances as well as ever new hats and dresses which she needed to make up for the poverty of her youth. Against the backdrop of the loud arguments between my parents, I certainly aimed for a more harmonious life with a beloved husband. For half a century I was convinced that my parents only married because I was on the way, but on their 50th wedding anniversary they conveyed to me that I was a child of love. There was a lot of love despite all the quarrels which could make life difficult for everyone in the household.

My greatest wish was a life where I would be accepted and respected; I wanted to belong; to be able to make independant choices; to commit myself to justice and knowledge. And, I wanted to make anti-Semitism disappear.

Uncertainties of Jewishness

The most surprising discovery, when looking back on my lived life, is the impact of my Jewish background, despite the fact that I did not live a Jewish life and therefore insisted on not being Jewish. I had no Jewish upbringing at all, there were never held any Jewish rites or holidays in my young life; I had to discover every Jewish bit and piece by myself. It was as of everything Jewish had disappeared together with my grandparents. Everyone else I met seemed convinced that I was Jewish, so how could it possibly come as a surprise? I was ashamed about what happened to Jews but it was not out of shame I concealed the fact. It was because I did not know.

Seeing Jews as a condemned group of people was the idea of Hitler’s gang. I didn’t want to be condemned, despised and rejected. It was unfair. Insulting. And it no doubt resulted in a negative identity. I simply didn’t understand why it was done to me, an after-war child. I had ugly experiences some of which I will describe later, but my parents also played a role; my mother told me that all people were born equal, that racism was bad and fascistoid. Her opinion was born out of her experiences in Vienna when she was thrown out of school because she was Jewish. She chose to abandon everything Jewish, to be a communist, and as part of this role fight fascism and anti-Semitism. Later I found out, that she missed her Jewish traditions quite a lot.

During the war, when Hitler was in charge of public morals and norms, Austrians were exposed to intense anti-Jewish propaganda, and many Austrians participated in the killing of Jews. It didn’t end when the war ended. In the post-war years, i.e. my younger years, there was still a lot of anti-Jewish mockery and bullying. And anxiety by those who were victimised. My first-hand experience goes even back before I started school when children I usually played with sang anti-Jewish rhymes while dancing around me. I didn’t know what it was about but my mother loudly scolded the mother of the singing-and-dancing girl. I found my mother’s attitude embarrasing at the time because I feared for my friendships.

A few years later, still not understanding any of it, I was hit by a major blow. Here is what I have carried with me all my life: the girls in my 3d year class were worried because I wasn’t Catholic. “You'll never go to heaven! You'll get stuck in purgatory,” they warned me. I had no idea what ‘heaven’ or ‘purgatory’ meant. I found the Catholic world around me fascinating; there was so much gold and glitter at Catholic processions that I envied the girls who took part in them. Sometimes they approached me for good advice on what they should say at Mass when they needed to confess, without upsetting their mother or the priest. I could always find a ‘crime’ that was inventive and not-too-serious. My classmates also begged me to come along to their pastoral care sessions at the local church. One day, I went along.

We sat down, legs crossed, on a podium in a hall with a piano. It turned into one of the most unsettling events of my childhood. A chubby chaplain told a Bible story about a massacre of boys in Betlehem. I listened in astonishment. Were children also murdered in the past? At the end of the story, the priest asked me in a calm and welcoming voice, if I had a question about anything I hadn't understood. There certainly was! Not about Betlehem, though. I decided on something else, something that seemed even more important. Trustingly I asked: “What do the letters I.N.R.I. on the cross on the wall mean?” The chaplain translated: “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”. I was surprised, I hadn’t expected that. I said something along the lines of “So it has something to do with Jews?” The priest's face turned all red. Shifting to white. Red again. He was enraged. His voice, which had been soft until now, broke. “_Unverschämter Judenbengel!”, “_Insolent Jewish imp!” he screamed and pointed at the door. I was to leave. Now. He threw me out of the room, out of the church. I felt helpless and rejected. I didn’t understand his anger. I was not prepared. I had no idea whatsoever what Jews had to do with Jesus. Was he the king of the Jews or not? What was so terrible about it? My gandparents were Jewish, but did that have anything to do with Jesus? I had never met neither Jews nor Jesus, not knowingly at least. No matter what enraged the priest, I was the wicked one to be thrown out. Expelled. Abandoned. Alone.

Years later, during my early teenage years, I entered a Jewish world for the first time. I was walking on a tight rope between not being Jewish and a growing Jewish awareness. The first time I wondered: I was 12-13 years old visiting my grandma Ella in London in the summer of 1955. In July, grandma sent me to an English school for foreigners on Oxford Street, and in August, she sent me to a summer camp at Kinnersley Manor in Reigate together with my English cousin David, who is only one year younger than me. When we arrived, we were asked by the leader of the camp what our religion was so she could make sure we could go whatever church we needed. I didn’t have a religion, and that's what I told her. “If you had one, which one would that be?” she then asked. I couldn't say. I didn't know. “Jewish,” David answered on my behalf. There it was: my surprise. How did he know and I didn't?

Returning from this holiday, I asked my mother what the Jewish things were about and why they were so important. This time she responded honestly: “I am Jewish but your father thinks it’s politically incorrect. He mocks me. I go to synagogue once a year to honour my dead parents; I don’t tell your father. You can come with me next time if you want to.” My mother's admission of what she did and why opened my mind not only to their complicated relationship but also to the Jewish topic. I went along with her the first-coming Yom Kippur. I had no idea what Yom Kippur was but my mother explained that the important thing for her was Kol Nidre, a prayer sung at the beginning of the service which annules all vows one has given; she had made so many promises to her parents when she left Vienna in January 1939 which she couldn’t keep. She had even promised that she wouldn’t go out with boys! Then her parents were dead. Her feelings of guilt were enormous.

The service itself didn’t appeal to me, I didn’t understand a thing, but it was interesting to be in a synagogue for the first time. I came to sit high up on a balcony next to a middle-aged woman who chatted with me during the service. “I come from Khartoum in Sudan,” she declared. Contrary to the situation today, when Sudan is a Muslim country in turmoil, in the 1950s (and since 1899) Sudan was ruled by the United Kingdom through an Egyptian governor-general and had a corresponding mixed population. This I can add today, in 1955 I had no idea about Sudan other than that it was in Africa. “It is strange,” I replied. “I’ve just been in a summer camp in England where I made friends with a girl from Khartoum.” I had never heard of Sudan before, and now, I met two Sudanese people within a few weeks. What a coincindence… “This girl is my niece”, the woman commented calmly. Again, it is the synchronicity of meeting a girl my age in England who was from a strange country which I had not heard of before, and then having a chance encounter with a woman from the same country in Vienna. It makes me remember the event so clearly.

My visit to the synagogue together with my mother, and her admitting why she had never spoken of it before, sparked my curiosity. I wanted to learn more about what it means to be Jewish. My mother told me about a golden chain with a Yemenite mezuzah pendant from Palestine which she had been given by her mother as a farewell present when she left Vienna in 1939. I begged my mother to lend me the pendant and then wore it as a kind of amulet to protect me against the abundant anti-Semitism around me. Often I hid it under my sweater. I felt courageous and was convinced that nobody knew what it was anyway. This was my first cautious attempt to do something Jewish and at the same time conceal it because I felt uncomfortable about it. Years later, when I left home, my mother gave me the golden pendant as a present. Regrettably, I have to admit, that I later lost it. I feel ashamed and devastated because it was my grandmother’s present to my mother, and my mother’s present to me, but I can’t make the loss undone. I never had the courage to tell my mother while she was alive.

It was by no means my last attempt to conceal what I did not really understand or what I feared and liked at the same time. Today it is easier to analyze; It seems to me that it was a conflict between my anxiety af reactions from the outside world and an attraction that came from the inside. This became clear to me when a year before graduation we got a new, innovative literature teacher who gave us the task to present a novel we found personally significant to the entire assembled class. Books that other students presented, revealed new things to me about them. So did my presentation reveal something about me – to those who could read between the lines and would listen. My choice revealed a lot about my perception of the world at the time, and my desire to understand a major conflict. I selected a newly published novel by the German author Lion Feuchtwanger (1884-1958) called A Spanish Ballad. It had another title as well: The Jewess of Toledo. The former was used in East German editions, the latter in West Germany. I only mentioned the first. My choice became a defining moment in my young life because it made clear how significant, albeit risky, my Jewish discoveries had become.

The novel's plot centres on the passionate love affair between the 12th-century king Alfonso VIII of Castile and his very young lover Raquel. Raquel’s father, the king's Minister of Finance, was born a Jew, but had been forced to convert to Islam while living in Al-Andalus. He left the Muslim-controlled south and took up service at the court of the Catholic king in Toledo who allowed him to regain his Jewish religion and his original name, Yehuda. With him came his seventeen-year-old beautiful, intelligent and literate daughter, Raquel, whom the King immediately fell for and wanted as his mistress. Yehuda could not deny the king's wish if he wanted to remain in his service. Raquel knew intuitively that the arrangement ultimately would lead to her death. Nevertheless, she became the king’s concubine, and they lived in love together for seven years. Raquel became pregnant and gave birth to Alfonso’s child. Despite Yehuda trying to convince the king of the virtues of peace, the king was persuaded to participate in one of the Pope’s Crusades. The question of war and peace is on the forefront of the novel, as it was on mine. The novel ends sadly with Yehuda, Raquel and Raquel’s child being killed by their Christian foes.

I could immediately identify with the plot of the novel. It mirrored exactly what I saw as my own problem as a 16-17 year old girl, a problem I could not solve. Like Raquel, I felt that I would be doomed if I embarked on a Christian love affair because I, like her, was born into a Jewish family. I could try to hide this fact and fear to be unmasked. The risk of being called names in an argument or even being threatened, remained. I could either start a relationship with a Catholic guy or turn away from it. That was my understanding which I, today, see as typical Austrian. Although the conditions in 12th century Spain and 20th century Austria differed, the dilemma continued to exist. Out of an inordinate fear, I did not present Raquel as Jewish in my presentation but as a foreigner.

In Vienna of the 1950s my fears seemed justified. Several times I had been told by boys that they could not invite me home, I surely knew why. I regret not having had anyone to tell me not to be so scared of my Jewish ancestry. On the contrary: my father’s recommandation for a conflict-free life was this: “Behave like everyone else, then nothing will happen to you.” It wasn’t true.

Reservations, sometimes even a barely hidden enmity towards people who were suspected to be Jewish was the norm. Later, when I started at university, even bureaucrats and professors would make remarks which would not be acceptable today. My surname was recognisable Jewish to everybody who had lived through Hitler’s regime. Administrators would delight in calling the name out loudly, so that everyone in a queue would comment with a contemptuous laugh. What disturbed me most in those years, were boys or young men who found me attractive and wanted to date me, but did not want their friends and family to know who I was. One boy introduced me to his friends as Italian in order to explain my dark hair and eyes. “You’re actually quite nice for a Jewish girl,” another guy once told me on a date. I hadn’t told him I was Jewish. Why did he mention it? What did he think of Jewish girls? What prejudices did he have? I don’t know, I just accepted his comment. Prejudice has always astonished me. I didn’t want to be singled out. But I had no answer.

One day, when sitting in a café, a portly Jesuit, a Catholic authority, took the table next to me. I took the chance to ask him what answers the Church could provide. Was converting an answer to my problem of standing outside? After all, everybody else seemed to be Christian. “You may convert,” he said, “but the guilt you have brought upon yourself by killing our Lord, Jesus Christ, will never be taken away from you.” His answer shocked me and closed this topic forever. I can still hear his solemn voice in my ears. I felt sad and outraged. Desperate and worried. Even more excluded. What guilt could I possibly have for an event that happened hundreds of years ago? What kind of stupidity was there in the world? Although I did not feel Jewish at all, the priest’s words hurt me deeply. I came to fear signs of rejection even more, and that anxiety grew. Perhaps it would have been easier if I had had some knowledge and awareness of Jewish matters? My fear made my interest for Jewish issues grow. At first slowly, and increasingly so with age until it finally unfolded entirely in midlife.

Decades after my meeting the Catholic priest, I found out that some of my Viennese acquaintances and friends actually also were from Jewish families. It had never been mentioned before. I knew that they all came from families that had been persecuted due to the appalling concept of Hitler's gang. Most of those had returned from camp or exile and had become communists as a weapon against fascism. They never spoke of Jewish issues. Jewishness was an inconvenient topic so soon after the war.

It was not before around 1990 that I asked my friends and my parents in Vienna a first question about their own relation to Jewish issues. Everything related to the Second World War was, as unbelieveable as it sounds today, hushed up in Austria’s political landscape. Only in 1991, the Social Democratic Chancellor Franz Vranitzky declared as the first in a speech in Parliament that Austrian citizens shared responsibility for the suffering they had inflicted on others. “Just as one claims good deeds, one must say sorry for the evil deeds one has committed,” he said. No wonder that I felt an outsider in the 1950s and 60s, and existentially lonely. Being Jewish felt life-threatening and anxiety-provoking. It was best not to mention it.

Dating boys

The divergent environments at school and at home were managable and didn’t influence my interactions with boys. I had friends, and dated boys from all strands of my life. My main worries in my final school years and the first time thereafter were about a steady relationship. At the time I am talking about, around 1960, ‘love affairs’ were very different from what they are today, 65 years later. Broadly speaking, there were only two kinds of relationships: either a boy/young man and a girl/young woman would go out together, dancing, skating, going to the movies, the opera or a jazz club, holding hands, having a good time together; or they would really fall in love and want a more serious relationship. I went out with quite a few boys and had a great time. The problem arose with the second type of relationship as the thought of getting married would then be on the agenda. According to the code of the time, we were not supposed to involve in sexual relationship before marriage. Of course, sex happened, desire is nothing new, but if it was discovered or had consequences, hell would break loose. Abortions were illegal and dangerous, and contraception had hardly been invented, so unplanned pregnancies often forced couples to marry quickly or to put their life in the hands of a backstreet abortionist.

It was no secret to me that I was seen as good-looking at the time and that I was the object of many boys’ erotic fantasies. I hated it when boys were attracted to my bossom rather than my qualities. I didn't quite know how to assess approaching boys, although I must admit that I highly appreciated their interest in me. At later school reunions many told me that they saw me as the most attractive girl in school – but also by far the most unapproachable. I was on guard to avoid a bad reputation.

However, I fell seriously in love at the age of seventeen. We had a really good time together, went for walks, to jazz clubs, kissed, talked cautiously about a future together, etc. My mother interfered and threw my love out in a hysterically loud voice when he came to visit me. An aquaintance had told her that his father, who had been killed in WW2, allegedly had been a Nazi. I have no idea whether the accusation was correct, but does that make a young son who had never met his father a criminal? He broke off our relationship immediately; he did not want this conflict. I was extremely unhappy. This experience made me doubt any serious involvement with an Austrian from a non-Jewish family, given the widespread anti-Jewish and anti-Nazi sentiments of the time.

Had I known more about being Jewish, my life would probably have been easier. It was only much later that I discovered what being Jewish meant and it explained to me some of the most disturbing problems of my youth. Above all, the literary cliché of the beautiful Jewess was a late discovery that explained many of my uncertainties and doubts. It was in connection with my book project on my school class that my former schoolmate, T., sent me a letter in which he wrote: “Surely the beautiful Jewess of your intelligence cannot fail to notice that the latent desire for annihilation was only barely masked by erotic attraction.” This remark made me aware of La Belle Juive as a motif in Western European literature, a literary archetype of the exotic other. I had never before registered the term ‘beautiful Jewess’ and had to look it up online. I could only nod in recognition and, in retrospect, understand the impact it has had on my life. Today, I realise that, while young, I was a clear example of this literary borderline figure.

I never doubted that I wanted to have children. Already in a 4th grade essay on the topic What I want to become when I grow up, I wrote: I would like to become a teacher, but I can’t because I can't write neatly on a blackboard. But I can become a mother. What a stir this last sentence aroused. Both my teacher and my mother were excited by my statement. I couldn't understand why. I wrote what I wrote because I hadn't met any women with jobs other than mothers and teachers. The only other job I knew of for a woman was the 18th century Austrian empress Maria Theresa who had given birth to 16 children and had a job as a ruler! This impressed me, but it was not a job available to commoners like me. There also were female shop assistants, but they didn’t appeal to me.

I always expected to have my first child at the age of 20. Why 20? Because my mother as well as my two grandmothers had their first child at that age, and I was convinced that this was the way it ought to be. My dream was to have three children, or to be more precise: three sons. I couldn’t imagine having daughters because my own relationship with my mother was so difficult. I also wanted to combine motherhood with a professional life. Over the years I had several ideas of what to become but of all my professional ideas along the way, not one was realized. My life took an entirely different direction. Only my wish to have three sons came true. It came to define my identity. It makes me happy to think of it.

A decisive event

Life at 16-17 consisted not only of boys. One event sticks out: In the summer of 1959, Vienna hosted the International Youth Festival organised by the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students. 15,000 young people participated in a thousand events. It was an opportunity to meet young people from more than a hundred countries, even from Africa and Asia, which one normally never had the chance to meet in those years. It was a political as well as a cultural event, very left-wing, no doubt about that. It took me to new hights and a larger world. I met dozens of young people who had come to Vienna to meet and exchange ideas.

The festival would not have been such a success without the support of a legion of Viennese youngsters who offered to help. I offered English language assistance. At the opening of the festival in Vienna’s stadium, I was assigned to march in front of the British delegation with a signpost. A photograph was taken and published in Daily Mirror which a relative in Manchester saw and forwarded to my parents. It was a poor quality copy that deteriorated over time. Surprisingly, I discovered a high-quality version of this photo on the Internet. It shows a young me at the front, followed by a bagpipe band from the University of Glasgow. I befriended one of the pipers who wrote me a text on his handkerchief which I have kept. He called me cheeky, delightful, intelligent, provocative and challenging. No wonder I was elated!

I also worked for several days with a mixed Jewish-Arab music group from Israel. We drove around the city from concert to concert in a minibus and had great fun. I was proud of their cooperation. Until one of the Jewish guys asked me in a whisper if I myself was Jewish. If so I shouldn’t tell the Arabs. I have no idea how he could tell. After that, it was impossible to proceed as the neutral guide with equal commitment to both groups. It made me stop attending to the Israelis. I also assisted a student group from the Soviet Union in the Museum of Cultural History. They knew much more about biblical themes in art than I did while I had expected them to be totally anti-religious. My tasks as a voluntary companion was possible because I knew English and Russian, which was an absolutely rare quality at the time. The close encounters with young people from other countries were extremely inspiring and opened my mind to the world.

An event on the last day of the festival convinced me of the advantages of a left-wing movement. I was asked to take down the festival flag from an elevated platform together with a young man I knew. From my vantage point I could see directly across to the likewise elevated position of Paul Robeson, who sang his signature song Ol’ Man River about the hardships of African Americans in his famous bass voice. I felt shivers down my spine. In a speech he recounted how the US government had revoked his passport as a punishment for fighting for freedom, equality for all, and for his leftist views. How strong his message was, how powerful his voice was. No doubt, this was a climax for me.

What made the festival an even stronger event was the decision of the Viennese press to boycot the festival by a ‘solidarity of silence’, i.e. by not printing a word about it. They opened up anti-festival information centres and organised religious services expecting that many of the festival participants would ask for asylum. Young Viennese who opposed the festival were encouraged to discuss the advantages of the free Western world with the young participants. The idea was that they were forced to participate and that they would choose the free world when given the chance. Only six persons asked for asylum when the festival was over. I found it provoking that several from my school participated in the anti-festival arrangements. Participating in a well of cultural arrangements with young people from all over the world was an enrichment for me. It made no sense to me why others shouldn’t be allowed to be part of it.

My attitude to the festival correlated with my parents’ ideology. At the age of 16-17, I was just beginning to develop my own understanding of the world around me. Like most of my friends, I was raised in a Communist family which my parents saw as defence against the dominating right wing ideologies asn which influenced their choice of workplaces, as well as friends. It also was a guideline in my upbringing including left-wing books and left wing ideas, primarily anti-fascist, anti-war, and with an international outlook. This was contrary to the nationalist and right-wing outlook of other children. We were also brought up with an awareness of poverty and misery in society, and oppression in the world at large. It gave us norms for living, for fighting for equality; we were taught never to take money intended for poorer people. This also implied that we never were to take part in holiday camps in the GDR, Hungary or the Soviet Union, where many of my friends went. On the other hand, my parents undoubtedly magnified the virtues of Soviet life, they knew no better. At least not while we were school children. Their preaching respect for workers made me want to leave school and start working, like many of those around me had to. It was not accepted. My parents made it clear to me that I was privileged and that this privilege meant that I had to take school seriously and pass my final exams. “Your high school diploma is your dowry,” my father said. “It will help you to earn a living later.” These words convinced me that my parents cared and I changed my mind.

Like others of my friends growing up after the war, our discussions lead me to become more doubtful over time; the influence of our parents’weakened although I never abandoned my left-wing position. I became curious as to who is right about the Soviet Union and who isn’t. Were the communists who praised the country right, or their enemies who condemned it? The question mirrored the ambivalence between my Communist environment at home and the mostly anti-Communist environment of the outside world as well as the ambivalence between living in a working district on the outskirts of Vienna and attending a high shool in the bourgeois centre of the city.

Life-defining voyage

When I graduated from high school in 1960, my parents wanted to show their appreciation by giving me a special present. They gave me three options, a driving licence, a jewlery or a journey. I had no doubts: I wanted to travel. I wanted to visit the USSR to find out what life there was like. In 1960, only fifteen years after the war, the only way to go there was to join a trip organised by a pro-Soviet organisation. I was lucky, as the Austrian-Soviet Friendship Society offered a journey for a small group of young people that summer. My parents made sure I could participate.

We travelled by train, first stopping in Warsaw, where we experienced quite a lot of hostility because we spoke German. I was even refused to use the toilet on the train station. I thought this to be ridiculous; we were all babys during the war. On the other hand, Warsaw was in ruins, and many Poles felt anger and hatred towards Germans. We met not only anger, however, but also young guys who were eager to stroll with girls from the West. After a day or two in Poland we proceeded to the border at Brest, in today’s Belarus.

The transition to the new world was emphasised by differing track widths for Western and Eastern trains. Our entire train was lifted by crane onto new, wider tracks. For me, this change of tracks symbolized the cultural shift we were about to experience. We were met by children wearing white blouses and red neckcloths, singing for us. There stood a smiling young guide, a German-speaking Russian student who accompanied us from the first day of the trip to the last. Much to my astonishment, I met Marina, the guide, again more than a decade later when she had married a Dane and lived in Denmark, just as I did. This is yet another of the coincidences I cherish so much. Even more coincidentally, one day I met Marina’s son in my own kitchen. He was conducting an interview for the Danish Radio with my husband. How strange these coincidences are!

Our first stop on the Soviet voyage was the capital Moscow. We were shown the most beautiful buildings of the Kremlin, many of which are closed to the public today. On the Red Square we had some free time, which I, together with another girl, spent strolling through GUM, a shopping centre, where people were queuing for winter coats. We understood that many products were difficult to acquire, so people had to take a chance. We then met two young Russians who tried to speak to us in English, which was remarkable and extremely scarce at the time. They had lots of questions, as had we. We spent hours walking together through the centre of Moscow, talking and laughing, until it became time get to our Guesthouse for supper.

The two accompagnied us. Suddenly, out of nowhere, two broad-shouldered men appeared. “Wir Freunde!” “We friends”, they exclaimed, pushing the two gentle boys ruthlessly into the house entrance. I had heard enough about the USSR to know that the lads would be interrogated. We felt we couldn’t let them down, so we sat down on the steps outside the house and waited. We waited for four full hours when they finally exited looking totally exhausted. They whispered to us that they no longer could talk to us and that they had been expelled from their university. I felt awfully sorry for them, but there was nothing we could do. We had had a good time, had only talked with them casually, that’s what they wanted, that’s what we wanted – and now their lives were in ruins.

This was a first encounter with the dark side of Soviet reality. More were to follow. One of the less serious, yet still negative encounters, occured when I photographed a tree house adorned with beautiful carvings. Again, out from nowhere, a policeman appeared. “You want to document that Russians still live in tree houses? You are not allowed to spread negative information,” he announced. I tried to explain, that I took pictures of the houses because they were so delightful. It didn’t help. The man forced me to remove the film from my camera. I was quite indignant. I could not understand why these traditional houses were not appreciated. When I returned to Moscow some years later, the beautiful houses had disappeared and had been replaced by ugly concrete high-rises. I can’t recount everything I experienced, but some things are worth telling because they left such a strong impression on me and had meaning for my life.

I noticed that not all young people dressed the same as we had been told in school. At my age, I was primarily interested in boys; I could distinguish two types, which I called the American and the French types. Their clothing was, of course, adapted to what was available, but there were clear differences: the ‘French types’ wore tight fabric trousers and had short haircuts, while the ‘American types’ wore jeans-like wide-legged trousers and had thick tufts of hair both at the back and front. They also differed in their behaviour. While the first were accommodating, the second were more confrontational. These are, of course, generalisations, but I had the opportunity to study both types in more detail.

Four from our group went on an excursion on our own. We had been told that this was not allowed, but our guide was surprisingly easy-going, not the least because few of us could speak some Russian. It was our intention to find out how Russian youth spent their free time. We asked around and were referred to a dance club in Gorky Park. The first startling encounter happened in the bus that took us there. A young man of the ‘French type’ took the seat next to me. He suddenly leaned across towards my ear and whispered one word: “Evrejka?” The word means “Are you Jewish?” When boys called me Jewish in Vienna, I saw it as a relic of Hitler’s racism, but in the USSR, a country where ethnic distinctions supposedly didn’t exist, why would anyone say so? I nodded in surprise. The guy introduced himself as Volodya and told me that he was half Jewish, and that Jews constantly faced difficulties. Then, quickly, he jumped off the bus. How disturbing this encounter was! Not only had he recognised me as being Jewish, but I was even more surprised that Soviet life apparently wasn’t as encompassing and inclusive as I had been told.

We continued on the bus and got off at the park where we after a short walk found a wooden building from which sounded old-fashioned music. We went in, paid a small fee, and looked around wondering: girls sat on benches around the room, waiting to be asked to dance. How outdated that seemed to us. Ignoring the queue, the four of us started dancing. A guy of the ‘American type’ approached us and demanded, in a very provocative way, to dance with me. “Njet”, “No,” I said. Immediately, a fight broke out between some rough Russians and the Austrian I was dancing with. It was was about to become dangerous; the gentle Austrian I had danced with didn’t stand a chance. I was scared. Then, luckily, out of nowhere, a kind of supervisor appeared and said a few words about foreigners, after which the Russian bully instantly withdrew. So did we, slightly wiser than before, both about how Soviet men behaved and about rules of taking contact.

From Moscow we travelled by third-class wooden train via Kharkiv and Kyiv to the Black See (at that time, the cities had the Russian names Kharkov and Kiev). The journey by train was exotic: chicken ran around freely in our carriage; farmers and soldiers chewed sunflower seed without interruption and spat the shells onto the floor. Was that just another culture or another era? Nevertheless, our fellow travellers were interesting company, and we had good talks. A little boy gave me a drawing that he had made himself. After a long train journey we arrived in Kyiv.

Kyiv, or Kiev at it was called, also had surprises in store. The city itself was stunning with its wide river and its golden church towers. We visited the famous cave monastery. Elderly women in black dresses were sliding on their knees towards the entrance. How humiliating, I thought. Wasn’t Soviet society supposed to be atheist, or even anti-religious? No one interfered, so it seemed to be accepted by the authorities. Another surprising experience was a visit to the opera house, where we saw a piece about the bliss of collective farms. On our way to the theatre we saw young collective farmers, dressed in their everyday farm attire, being driven there standing up in lorries. What a huge difference to an opera experience in Vienna! The music was good despite the unusual libretto. The young collective farmers in the audience seemed enthusiastic. It was about their life.

I took many photos in Kyiv, at the cave monastery, of churches with golden towers, and also at a Soviet war memorial depicting a tank. It probably no longer exists. One day, when returning to our hotel, I found that my camera had been opened by someone, and the film had been removed. It was really disturbing that someone obviously had ransacked my room. I felt bereaved, but was advised to accept it and not to file a complaint. Despite these negative experiences, there also were some I appreciated: every Ukrainian I spoke to seemed optimistic and proud to have rebuilt the city after the destructions of World War II. We never experienced any anger about us speaking German.

The third leg of our trip was a bus tour to Sochi at the Black Sea, where we were staying at a former sanatorium transformed into a huge sports palace. In the park was an elegant round dance pavilion with marble columns where a Czech jazz orchestra played in the evenings. I danced every night with one of the players, Pavel from Brno, and became the mascot of the orchestra. One evening we were reprimanded for dancing ‘open’, that’s what the administration called it. This was not acceptable. Yet another surprise! Our group had a good time, though: we went to the beach, went on excursions and had conversations with Russians.

One day on the beach, a good looking young man came up to our group and asked if he could join us. Strangely enough, I still remember his name as Naum G. He told us the story of his father who had been sent to a Gulag. While growing up without a father, he was approached by an old man who told him that he was Jewish and who offered to teach him some Jewish customs. Naum began visiting the old men in an attic. When the authorities found out, Naum was denied the opportunity to go to university. He must have done so anyway because I have seen scientific publications on the internet that list him as the author. At the time, this was yet another shocking story far from the narrative of friendship between peoples that I had expected.

I realised that the country was more oppressive and impoverished than my parents thought, and more diverse and complex than anti-Communists claimed. There were ugly grey concrete blocks as well as beautifully carved wooden houses, oppressive police officers as well as friendly, proud youngsters. Friends were arrested and films confiscated, but there was also a diversity of smiling Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Georgians, etc. We had many encouraging experiences, but also many annoying ones. The lack of goods, the limiting moral code, the anti-Semitism, the omnipresence of the authorities were outrageous. However, the diversity, energy and friendliness of young people was uplifting.

On the last part of our trip, back to the border, our guide asked me about my plans for the future. I had none. I wanted to study, although I hadn’t made up my mind yet. She recommended me to study Russian, as she had noticed that my interest in her country went beyond simple tourism. When autumn came, I decided to follow her advice and inscribed lectures in Slavic languages at the university of Vienna. Later, I returned to the Soviet Union countless times, now professionally, to conduct research in order to understand the country more profoundly, at a deeper level.

_ Studying languages and linguistics_

Studying languages had not been my plan earlier. Neither had the career counsellors at my high school recommended it to me; no tests seemed to qualify me for languages. My special talent was, so they said, recognising patterns. When I started studying Russian at the university, it dawned on me, how much the study of languages depends on recognising patterns. I also discovered my interest for language theories and language psychology. A newly emerged scientific field, Translation and Interpretation Studies, also excited me. The department was headed by a passionate professor who took a genuine interest in each and every one of his students, also me. While the professors in Slavic Studies seemed conservative and biased, Translation Studies was characterised by openness and acceptance. This field of knowledge made me happy. Studying made me happy. There were so many new things to learn.

As a political person I also engaged in political associations at the university. I didn’t participate actively, but I enjoyed listening to people whom I found inspiring. Opposite the university lies the famous Café Landtmann, which has a theatre room in the basement, where clever men sometimes explained difficult political topics. I took part in an event organised by the VdS, the Association of Democratic Students. That’s where I met Hans. Hans was the first man of Jewish descent to show an interest in me. He was 26 while I was 19 when our paths crossed. Hans showed a great interest in me. He wanted me. He soon introduced me to his parents who welcomed me warmly. They had also been in England during the war, and they knew my parents from that time. However, they had no private contact before Hans and I met. I had never heard of them before.

Because I was in doubt about nearly everything, and because I was afraid of chosing wrongly, I had drawn up a list of ten points that a man with whom I began a relationship should meet. The list emphasised, of course, that he should like me, and I him; that he should be older than me; be a left-winger; have a higher education; come from a Jewish family background; etc. Hans corresponded to each and every one of my rather theoretical conditions.

I fell pregnant the first time Hans and I had sex, even though he used a condom. It turned out that he wasn’t ready to have a child and wanted me to terminate the pregnancy. Although I was not ready for a child either, I did not want an illegal abortion. A close friend of mine was subjected to a backstreet abortionist who tortured her with a kitchen knife on a kitchen table. It was traumatic for her, and it was the reason I refused to have an illegal abortion. Hans backed away. “You got pregnant on purpose, to make me marry you,” he insisted. I hadn’t planned to get pregnant, but I was happy to have an excuse to move away from home. In my view, there was no way I could become an independant adult while living with my mother, and she wouldn’t accept me leaving her or home without a good reason. She loved me, no doubt about that, but she had very strong opinions and an even stronger will to make me comply with her vision of my life. She insisted on knowing what was good for me; she decided which friends I could spend time with, which clothes I should and shouldn’t wear. She would beat me when she felt rejected, and she disliked Hans intensely. The disrespect was mutual, by the way.

That’s why my father was the first person I told about my pregnancy. I needed my parents’ permission to get married because I hadn’t yet reached the legal age of adulthood. “Hans is a very special person,” my father said. “I doubt you will be happy with him, but if you insist in marrying him, I’ll help you.” I appreciated my father’s attitude, but I no longer had a free choice. My university professor also stressed my lack of choice by exclaiming “Mutterschaft oder Wissenschaft!” “Motherhood or science” when I told him. Also my esteemed high school maths teacher was disappointed: “I expected more from you,” he commented. That hurt. It makes me sad that I did not have the chance to show him that I could achieve more than just having children, that I could live up to his expectations despite everything, because he died at a very young age shortly after.

_ Wrong choices 1962-65_

My mother offered to take care of my child. This offer scared me. I was faced with a real dilemma: my mother wanted me and the child, something I couldn't envision at all, Hans didn't want me and the child, which threw me off balance. I had no idea what to do. In the end, when I insisted on having the child, Hans reluctantly agreed to marry me. He made sure I knew he was doing it unwillingly. I knew it was the wrong choice because I didn’t feel appreciated at all. Actually, we were both in doubt. But what could we do?

Our parents arranged a magnificent wedding. My grandmother came from London and my aunt came from New York. Some of Hans’ family came from the UK and the States, too. Friends of our parents attended and gave us priceless presents. It might have been a happy day if Hans hadn’t been so sarcastic about everything. He was proud of resisting convention; he refused to pick me up from home for the wedding. He disapproved of the make up I wore for the occasion, he mocked everything and was proud to disregard norms. For me, everything was a first and therefore important. Hans was aloof and egotistical. He was spoilt. Of course, I also had my weaknesses: most of all I lacked self-esteem and experience. I was more aware of what I didn’t want than what I wanted. But I definitely wanted to marry, to have the baby, to get away from childhood conditions.

Our parents helped us find a small apartment in time for the birth of our child. I had no experience of houskeeping at all; everything was new and difficult to begin with. Hans criticised me, but didn’t help. He made me carry the heaviest bags, even at the end of my pregnancy. Household issues and gentleman behaviour were beneath his dignity. When the time came for the birth on a Sunday in July, I felt very alone. It was half past 12, the sun stood high. At that same moment, a red squirrel jumped from one branch to another in a tree outside the window of the maternity hospital. I took this to be a good omen. Becoming a mother gave me a new identity long before I got a professional one. Although housework could be problematic, my new son was not.

We had decided to name the baby Miki, regardless of gender. Miki was not a recognised name, so he became Michael, but he was always known as Miki within the family and with friends. It was obvious that Hans loved him from the beginning and liked to play with him. The three of us spent many happy hours together. However, as time passed, Hans started visiting his mother for supper and going to soccer matches with his father, leaving me at home alone. He was critical, which I understand. He came from a patriarchal home with a repressed mother who had a lot of experience, so he did not understand what it meant to be inexperienced in housekeeping and cooking. He was also stingy, withheld money, and prevented me from studying, working or arranging childcare. He expected me to cook, clean and take care of him and our child, and even help him organise his chemistry thesis.

Of course, not everything was bad, it seldom is, and we had many nice moments. However, I felt trapped in a cage. A new cage. While my friends were enjoying their youth, going to festivals and concerts, travelling and experimenting, I became increasingly desperate at home. After three years as a housewife and mother, and a cold shoulder from Hans, I wrote this poem in my diary:

1. My life is over -        2. I'm looking for a way out

is there a new one ahead?      A way to be again

I can't see how to live!       My old life is over.

I'm dead -                    How can it go on from here?

3. Everything is gone: I am not living anymore; 4. I've been fighting for years –I stop thinking, I stop being. Fighting is exciting,I wait to be born again, My heart is bursting.and can only give birth to me myself. Where do I find the way?
4. Revolution is what is needed! 6. What will happen next?All my energy threatens to explode. I can't just be a woman.Death is not the end, The human in me must be born!that can't be life! Is the goal getting closer?

Rereading the poem today, I realise that, although I was desperate, I was not without hope. The year was 1965. I had not yet turned 23.

9. What happened next was Peter

That same year I went on a life-changing summer holiday to Bulgaria with my three-year-old son, Miki; my unmarried younger sister, Hazel; and my likeable mother-in-law, Hilde. The hotel we stayed in offered a weekend cruise to Istanbul. That was tempting! – I desperately needed a few days off, and Istanbul seemed a worthwile destination. I asked my mother-in-law to look after Miki while the two of us went on the cruise. She was delighted to take care of him.

In the middle of the Black Sea on the MS Nessebar, I met Peter from Denmark. He was so different, so appreciative. He was fascinated by me, and he surely fascinated me. He exuded confidence and openness like no one I had met before. He seemed to know what he wanted and went for it. He accepted me for who I am, me and my little son. What’s more, to my amazement, he unambiguously made it clear that he had absolutely nothing against me coming from a Jewish background. When I told him, he simply said: “And so what?” At first, I stared at him in disbelief, but after less than a minute, I fell in love with him. This was the first time in my life I experienced that my Jewish background shouldn't matter; that I was accepted the way I was, and that there were other ways of viewing people like me than the ones I had experienced in Vienna. Peter's words awakened something new within me. A warmth spread. I looked up at him, into his calm blue-gray eyes, and realised that yes, we were in love.

My mother-in-law became a witness when Peter visited me at our hotel, and she advised me to be careful. Some years later, after Hans and I had divorced, she asked me to meet her, only the two of us. Over a cup of coffe she made a stunning remark: “As a woman,” she said, “I understand you and I’m on your side. But as a mother, I need to be on my son’s side.” I appreciated both of her claims. Many years later, when she was about to die, she wanted to see me. She was in great pain and asked for my help. I couldn’t ease her pain but told her that I admired her. She hadn’t had an easy life but she was a great support for my Miki through the years of our divorce. She had no education to speak of although she always wanted to develop her musical skills and her piano play but her husband did not allow it. My mother thought she was stupid, she was not. She was a human being with an open heart. I very much appreciated her.

Hans was a necessity when I was pregnant, but he was also a mistake. Necessary not only because I was pregnant, but also because I needed to get away from my difficult mother. I saw no other way to get away. Of course, there were other ways, my sister took a steamer to America straight from her graduation table. She was courageous; I was not. On the other hand, my life turned out to require a great deal of courage. I broke many norms; no woman I knew of had ever asked for a divorce in Catholic Vienna and none stayed alone with a child if there was a man around. Most women would rather stay in an unhappy marriage than take this step. Mothers I knew from walking in the park stopped talking to me on their husbands orders after my divorce, as if I could infect them. When I approached a lawyer to ask for assistance with my divorce, he bluntly told me that it was inappropriate for a woman to ask for divorce.

I was determined to leave my marriage notwithstanding the barriers, and I found a way. We divorced amicably before a judge in 1966 after we both admitted to have been uncaring and unloving. After our divorce, I could send Miki to kindergarten and work. In the beginning, I only got unskilled labour, but I then enrolled in a one-year graduate course at the Commercial Academy, which would teach me the skills I needed to earn a living. It was a difficult time being a single mother and studying but I overcame the difficulties. After graduating frm the Academy, I immediately found a job as accountant. Meanwhile, Hans left Vienna to work in Paris. Miki missed his father terribly. Every night, he came to my bed to see if his dad had returned.

When Miki turned six in July 1968, he started at the Lycee, the French school in Vienna. I was an extremely proud mother. Hans returned from Paris at the end of that year. Miki and I had lived together for six years, the last year with his father far away. It was only fair that he should stay with his father for a time, in a kind of child-sharing arrangement. I could use the time to go to Denmark for a trial tour. But what then?

It was my hope that I could take him with me later, if everything turned out well. I said goodbye to family, friends – and Miki. I took a few things with me; Duden dictionaries, a number of volumes written by the essayist, satirist, playwright Karl Kraus (1874-1936), my favorite at the time, as well as my favorite LP records.

Although I wanted a new life, I also took along my love for Vienna. Vienna was the city of my parents, my grandparents and my great-grandparents, it had become the city of my childhood and youth. In Vienna, I had been to kindergarten, school and university, I had made friends and had my boyfriends. It was where I got married and where I had my first son. So many memories! Growing up in post-war Vienna made me become the person I am. My self evolved – like that of most people – through unforeseeable coincidences, decisive happenings as well as pivotal relationships and experiences in this city. During these years, I came to love the city and was enriched by it. It was mine. The city also scared me, because I was never sure if I was welcome. I was not excluded but I felt alienated. I had become ‘attached to not belonging’. At times, I even hated the place.

The Vienna of the time was definitely conservative and Catholic, and there was a noticable anti-Semitism. In these first post-war years, many Austrians defended the atrocities that had occurred during the Nazi era including the hatred of Jews. It was not until decades after my farewell, that a critical public discussion about the country’s National Socialist past began. For years after the war, many people looked the other way and denied everything that had happened. I left Vienna longing for a different life. I wanted to escape, to leave behind the gruesome legacy I had inherited, to be free from what was imposed on me. But I also wanted to escape the grip of my family.

My pleasure at visiting Vienna, however, has never left me. The German language has remained important to me. I behave differently when I speak my Viennese German, I'm more mischievous, more relaxed, more free. My language variety reminds me of the self-confident schoolchild which laughed and joked a lot. My Austrian identity did not disappear when I left. It is associated with memories and emotions from childhood, youth, schools, friends, knowledge and experiences. When after more than 50 years away from Austria I was offered to regain the Austrian citizenship together with an Austrian medal for some of my services I greatfully and gladly accepted it.*

My Viennese life ended after 24 years. Some of those years were good for me; more were not. Starting a new life in a country I knew nothing about, was unpredictable, but my life could only improve, I thought; I had a lot to learn first, not only a new language. “You can't run away from your problems. The devil is riding along,” my childhood friend, Lili, warned me, when I visited her to say a final Goodbye. She was right, the devil came, albeit later. When I moved, there was no devil in sight.

Leaving Vienna for Copenhagen brought me immeasurable benefits. Except that there were important things I had to leave behind.