Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Aldrans

2008-06-16

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1944

We went through such a lot. And after the war... My God, the collapse was horrible. It was terrible! War time. The air raid warnings were always dreadful. Every morning at nine they flew over the peak of Hochnissl (a mountain) towards Italy. The German army was down there in Italy, also bombing everything. The planes made such a sound... you could see that they were loaded with bombs ? and when they came back they sounded lighter - you could really tell! They always flew the same route. It started regularly at nine o'clock. The last thing was Hitler's birthday on April 20th, Hitler's birthday. Our local community had built an air raid shelter. It still exists today, a shelter hewn into the rock with two entrances. There had to be two openings so you could get out if one was blocked. Many people fit in there. On Hitler's birthday ? I remember so well... My two children ?you've seen our son and our daughter is in America ? were on a cart, a small hand cart. Everything was plainly made then. Then my mother-in-law said... I got along well with my mother-in-law, I liked her a lot. Even though traditionally mothers-in-law are supposed to be mean. In the vernacular: 'Mother-in-law is the devil's paw'. Have you never heard that? That's dialect. There are many things, nowadays things have changed. Opinions between young and old used to differ a bit, they still do today. It makes sense that a young person has different opinions than an older one. Anyway, I went with the children... My mother-in-law said: "Go down today. God knows what will happen today." Then came an air raid warning. By then Hitler had already built a cable lift from the village square up the Weerberg (mountain). The village community was sponsored and got a lot of money. There was financial help for the farmers, they could build, get cheap loans and the cable lift was built up the mountain. Hitler invested a lot of money because he knew that food was essential in war. The lift ended at the restaurant which was higher up, - Schwemberger's. I rode down on the lift with the cart and the two children. A bit further up ? it was quite high ? a low-flying airplane flew under the cable. I thought my heart would stop! I really thought I'd have a stroke! Nothing more happened but the low-flying airplane had flown through. I went into the air raid shelter because my mother-in-law had said: "Take the children into the air raid shelter." We spent a long time in there ? there was a lot of bombing going on. Many train tracks ? also miss hits, they didn't always hit that they were aiming for. There were miss hits too. I know that they wanted to destroy - the viaduct in Innsbruck. Do you know the viaduct? In Innsbruck, where the train... The master plan was always to destroy the viaduct . All the houses were ruined to the left and right of it but they never hit the viaduct! If they had destroyed it, then supplies to Italy would have stopped. No more supplies would have reached their goal. That was the idea. But they didn't manage it. But to the left and the right the houses were all bombed. Those were very bad times.