A12 Vino, vino!

Narrator: Maria Mauritz, 1927
Reporter: Karina Mauritz

During and after the war we had to work very hard. I even wasn’t able to finish school because I had to work at the age of 14. There weren’t any machines at that time, so everything had to be done by handicraft. I had to mow, to milk the cows and to slog with the ox, because my mother wasn’t able to.

While we were working in the fields we were surprised by planes. We were scared because in the village of Romau a man and his ox had been shot. You can imagine the conditions we had to work. The time when the Russian army arrived, in 1945, was even harder than before. They stole our horse. One day some soldiers surprised us in the fields while we were planting potatoes. We fell down on the ground when we heard shots. Then we ran home as fast as we could. The planting was a difficult and hard work in those days.

After the end of the World War II I watched the birth of a calf. Suddenly my father entered the stable and told me to hide because there was a Russian soldier in our house. I fled to our neighbour’s attic at once. But soon I heard the soldier knocking on the neighbour’s door. I ran downstairs into the hall quickly because I was so frightened. And there a Russian soldier was standing in front of me. He touched me on the shoulder and said something to me I didn’t understand. But luckily my neighbour was standing next to me and he said to the soldier, “Vino, vino!”

He looked at the neighbour and at that moment I ran away and hid in the redcurrant bushes. There the Russian soldiers didn’t find me.