01:59

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

2008-05-06

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1942

Our home looked like - When we were small children we lived in my father's parent's house, in one room with a small kitchen. The ten of us lived there. So, one of us slept in mother and father's bed, one of us slept in a crib beside which was the bed where my sister and I slept. Two brothers slept in the bed behind the door and there were two mattresses on the floor and two on the floor in the kitchen. That's how we slept. That's how we lived. Until we ourselves built the house... And when we were older we were sent away to work - or to farmers. But home, where we were born, was only this small apartment. One room and a small kitchen. ... it was a room-kitchen-apartment, there was no pantry or - No, no pantry, nothing, absolutely nothing... The kitchen was so small, you could - there was a small table there, a bit larger than this one, and there three of four of us could eat, when they were finished others could eat there - 14 and... that is all we knew, because that's the way we grew up. There was no running water. We had to get water from the well. There was no water in the house. We had to get water from the well. We had to get it from the well with a little cart or a sled in winter. It was piteous, pathetically piteous, - I must say - that's how we lived.