02:04

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Innsbruck

2008-08-21

And then mother ... she was downstairs - wanted to plead for - father, that they wouldn't harm him.. And my father had already come down, but she didn´t know that. And there was this young man who wanted ... he pushed my father against the wall. So my father started to yell: "Don´t touch me!", he said, "I am an officer, I won't stand for this!" He shouted in a way that baffled them and suddenly mother was down there and heard father screaming like that, imagine! And then he - yes father shouted, and I know, he later said himself - they said to everyone, something like: "Jewish pig, come in here"... but then they said to father: "Please, Mister Brüll, come in here." He did not put up with anything! Also the day before, when they... he said: you´re no pasha, "how dare you call people at night?!" Well my father ... he said something back then, when they called - I forgot to say that "Take me to Dachau for all I care!" Mother stood next to him, shivering and he had this picture in his hand - the one, where father came back from close combat - my mother said "yes", she said -... my husband was an officer - with the brigade, with the Tiroler Kaiserschützen he hasn´t done anything, how can you do something like this? He wasn´t a devout Jew at all, my father. He even got christened - in the Stephansdom, much later, but ... he never went to the synagogue, the whole family was- what´s the word?... Assimilated. Assimilated, yes. They were .... they weren´t devout.