[VideoView]

Hanna Goldmann

We stay-behinds sang out of defiance
video length:
03:20
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
event
[1939-06-16] South Tyrolean optants After two hours of talks in Berlin between German (especially SS Reich Leader Himmler) and Italians, the resettlement of the German-speaking South Tyrol decided. Hitler asked Himmler to the overall planning and implementation of the overall planning of the resettlement.
place of recording
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1939
transcription:
Do you know the story about the stay-behinds? You don't? Then you don't know a lot about South Tyrol. At the time you had to choose Italian for Italy and could stay or move to Sicily ? or you chose German and had to leave. Very many people left after the treaty between Mussolini and Hitler. My boss was a stay-behind. My parents also stayed and as I was underage I was a stay-behind too. The butcher of Kurtatsch was a stay-behind, his daughter was in the choir with me. One day the choirmaster said: "We have beautiful Austrian songs and always practise these songs after the official practice." We shouldn't stay because we were stay-behinds. We weren't allowed to sing those songs. That was nonsense."Tonight is Sunday night, and my heart is laughing." We weren't allowed. So of course we stopped going to the choir, out of spite. We were the only two stay-behinds in Kurtatsch. Those who left set fire to my parent's hay and broke their windows. There were only two families in Tiers, one farmer and my parents. Everybody else opted for Germany. There was very ? how should I say? ? nasty propaganda: If you opted for South Tyrol, as a stay-behind you would be moved to Sicily, have to live in Sicily. That was not true. We were allowed to stay in South Tyrol. Later I can show you something, the song of "burning love". "The burning love is still blooming at the window." That means geraniums. "The love for Germany was stronger, we rejoice that it remained with us." And so on. The others wrote: "The love to the homeland was stronger." There's always the image of "burning love".