[VideoView]
video length:
03:47
interviewer:
Ruth Deutschmann
photography:
Benjamin Epp
copyright location:
Innsbruck
date of recording:
2008-06-17
English translation by:
Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner
Italian translation by:
Nicole D´Incecco
???iuimd_video_v_zeit_zuordnung_en???:
1916
transcription:
Clip 60 Grandfather’s soldier’s diary In Galicia, that was really terrible apparently, the flats in Galicia. They of course - no, I can’t tell you that, can’t tell you that, no, what happened to him there! No, I can’t tell you that. Should I tell you? - - They once stayed overnight at a married couple’s place. And they all slept on the floor. And then they heard how the couple whispered to each other and the soldiers didn’t know what was going on. The woman, it seems, had to go to the toilet. And the soldiers were on the floor somewhere. Then she stuck her bottom out somewhere and let it drop. Then everyone jumped up, went out and slept outside. That happened. He told it again and again, what it was like in Galicia. Then, he had a very nice experience. In fact in South Tyrol, down in the Italian part, there was ? how do you call it, where the troops concentrate ? the battlefield in the southern Dolomites. Kaiser Karl had come to inspect the troops, and my father was the group leader so he shook Kaiser Karl’s hand. This was the most wonderful experience of his whole life, that Kaiser Karl? "The Kaiser shook my hand, he shook my hand." That was his most wonderful experience. Grandfather, he had ? well the diary of my grandfather, that would be very interesting indeed. First the enthusiasm, the great enthusiasm, "the Russian bear, we’ll beat him from here to there" and so on and so on. But it died down slowly, slowly ? He kept a diary throughout the whole war. All his sons' letters - his four sons were with the Kaiserjäger (Austrian army division) - were copied into his diary, the letters, all of them, as they were written. ?Dear Father’ ? I can remember, my father's; I can still read the handwriting. My father wrote: 'My dear father! I hope you are doing well.' They conversed in the polite form. 'I am also well. I am in the Innsbruck military hospital, have been shot through my upper arm, but I’m doing well. May God protect you, dear father, stay healthy. Your grateful son, Heinrich' The grateful son, who received nothing but a cauldron and two towels. Yes, that’s what it was like, back then. - - - Is this interesting for you?