[VideoView]
Dipl.-Vw. Dr. Ludwig Steiner
Illegal border crossers (smugglers) & pretty girls
interviewer:
Ruth Deutschmann
photography:
Benjamin Epp
copyright location:
Wien
date of recording:
2008-04-29
English translation by:
Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner
Italian translation by:
Nicole D´Incecco
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1946
transcription:
After the Second World War... Pretty girls from the Ziller valley crossed the Hundskehle pass carrying five kilograms of salt and had a perm done in Bruneck. In those days they weren't available in Austria ? in Tyrol. Just imagine what happens to a perm if you have to cross a 2,850 altimeters high mountain pass to get home. But maybe it did help their good looks. After the war ? the second war, I crossed the Hundskehle pass quite a few times to get to South Tyrol. And the following was interesting: If you left Mayrhofen toward evening and walked up the mountain you might suddenly hear something rustling in the pine trees and would notice that there were cows somewhere. Smugglers drove their cows over the pass down to the Puster valley even though meat was very scarce in the north. But apparently the prices were higher in the south. They thought whoever came along at night must be a customs officer and hid in the underbrush. Those were interesting events.