Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Wien

2008-04-29

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1946

You have to imagine the following: In South Tyrol the food situation? and the currency didn’t lose its value For us South Tyrol was a paradise and stayed that way for a long time. When we drove to South Tyrol in summer ’45, we had to organize whom we would meet. Because people said: „Well, our boys are prisoners of war; and they were in the SS and are now in prison and so on. That is understandable. Only, how can we take a group of allied journalists to South Tyrol at the end of May 1945, and the first thing you hear on the street, a woman says: our boys from the SS.- We certainly didn’t need that. So we planned for it. We had a reliable partner, the priest from Pfalzen near Bruneck. He just 'happened to be' at the right place, wearing his cassock and with his bike, standing at the corner of the street so that we could meet him. That worked out quite well. So we helped each other. But there were American journalists, who said: "What is going on here?" For Europe, the best would be twelve atom bombs.” ? the best for Europe are twelve atom bombs.“ So the best would be to get rid of European rabble. That was the casual opinion of the boys, after the war. And to explain the suffering of these South Tyroleans to these guys was not that easy. They were much better off than we were. One or another said: You people out there, you don’t even have insulation for your windows.” We heard that too. But I think these are understandable reactions. No need to be insulted. That’s life.