03:19

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Innsbruck

2008-08-21

1938

I remember well, that was - yes, that was - I think father got picked up two or three times, there was always something. And once, that was in the morning - they said, everyone had to - show up at the Gestapo at ten in the morning, I didn’t really know about any of that - I worked 17 years at the building headquarters - to there they were all summoned. That was this - what is it called? - there, there was this - secret state ... - not secret state police, not there were of course - these bigwigs, these - well these Nazis, who did these things? The thugs were first, the others then picked them up, and there this Graubart, Richard Graubart, you probably have seen that too - he had a shoe store, and he - they stabbed him to death. - They locked up the wife, with the girl, with Vera, she was younger than I was. I quite often played with her, with Vera. And then - yes, that was just then, Ilse - father - yes and he also - mother went there: "I’ll go there, they can’t do anything to me, because I’m Aryan", she always had to stress that, because they couldn’t harm her. And then Ilse - well, nothing to do with Ilse, Then Ilse no, nothing to do with Ilse. Mother went to the Gestapo, to Herrengasse. Then two men come to us before lunch, and I just - I thought they're just some customers, he often led customers up, because he made very nice things. And then he came up - and suddenly, yes, they went - went into the room, I thought, they're customers - and suddenly they come out, and then they said "Please father has to ..." He said: "no", he says "that’s my girl, I can’t leave" - "Come or we’ll arrest you!" - to father. Then they took him. Then I went up to the third floor and - and said "they've taken father" - and so on, cried and so on. And then Uncle Rudolf - he had - he had, I think, three ribs broken, like here, and my aunt had a black eye, they also kicked mother somehow, well, I don’t know exactly, anyway, there - there was this Graubart and Willi Bauer, he was also a cousin of my father's, they were - then Berger. And Berger was a - he was a member of the religious community, he was a - very nice, a noble and distinguished man. They took - they took him out to the Inn and beat him to death with a rock. - Well, in Innsbruck a lot - and then they, I think the Italian Consul - I think they dragged him out of bed, and only later - they had to apologize, that he, that they were not allowed to harm him.