03:14

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

St. Anton

2008-08-19

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1935

When the snow clumps had melted we went back up through the tunnel and had supper. And then we were told: "Now go and finish your homework". We could go to bed after if we wanted to - which we didn't. So we fought over a seat at the oven. We were five children and in those days the bench near the oven was important because it was warm. That was the only place in the house where it was warm. The living room and the kitchen usually were relatively warm because that's where we made coffee or cooked other things. In winter, there were frost flowers on the windows in the other rooms - because it was so cold and the windows didn't close well. There was a draft everywhere. We slept in straw bags and burrowed into the straw to make a kind of nest and covered ourselves with a quilt. But it was - in retrospect - it was romantic. That it was. If you managed to get to the oven before father - there was an opening behind the oven - and the stairs up to the bedroom. The smallest of us would crawl into the opening because there was no room for him ? and the bigger ones didn't fit. The others sat on the bench in front of the oven. One of us usually was on top of the oven because it was nice and flat and you could - you could sit or lie there comfortably .. If someone was lying in front of the oven - when father came back from the stable or also on Sundays after lunch ? if one of us was lying there he came and stood in front of us and made a small gesture with his head - so we knew we had to leave. So we moved for father. Yes, and so .. that's how we spent our youth, if you think about it. Otherwise we went skiing in the winter and in the summer we went up the mountains or did something else. That was - essentially that was my youth.