The fifth day of May 1945
I can hear
Hermann’s familiar whistle from the church square below our living room window.
I answer as always and rush down stairs. “I must get the ‘pots’ out of our
apartment” I tell him. “We are getting 5 American officers quartered in our
apartment. If they find the pots, they’ll shoot us.”
Again we walk
through the town, heavily armed in our knickerbockers. We go to Hermann’s
house. His parents run a knitting mill and a retail store of knitted ware. We
sit in his basement, surrounded by neatly arranged shelves full of home made
jams, marmalades, fruits and vegetables. I’ve never seen so much food at the
same time in the same place. That’s why Hermann never bothers to go “food
collecting” with Kurt and me. Hermann opens a jar of sliced red beets and we
have ourselves a feast. Even down here we can hear the rhythmic chatter of the
knitting machines.
We consider putting our ‘pots’ together with the ignition
caps into one of the empty jars and place those in the back row of the
preserves. We abandon this idea when it proves that the grenades won’t fit
through the jars’ narrower necks. Finally we carefully remove the bottom board
of one of the storage shelves and place the potentially devastating explosive
cans on their side on the cobblestone ground. We replace the shelf and
reposition the jars.
To keep the length
of fuse dry, we place it, tightly curled, together with the ignition caps into an empty jar at the
back row of the most recently dated ”put
up” jam, reasoning that they would stay undisturbed the longest. Hermann places
the crimping pliers carelessly into a box housing old tools.
Then we step back
and admire our handiwork. “Gosh” says Hermann, “you’d never suspect.”
Just then I note
that it’s not only the clatter of the knitting machines I hear, but also the
blood pounding in my head.
When I come home,
my mother is frantic. They were looking for me all over, she says. (They
weren’t looking in Hermann’s basement or they would have found me, surrounded
by hand grenades.)
There is what
seems like a whole platoon of American soldiers in our apartment. It turns out
that there are five and they want quarters.
They indicate by
gestures that they want this room and that one.
I muster all my English language skills and tell them: “you cannot have
this room. This is our ‘beautiful room’. We use it only when we have visitors.”
One of the Americans turns to me. “Oh good, you speak English”. “Yes” I say, “a
very little”. “What is your name, please?” he asks politely. I tell him and he
says: “I am Lieutenant Anthony March. Consider us your visitors.” I understand that our “Beautiful Room” in
which only rare guests or important relatives, like Onkel Felix, were
entertained will now house two or three ‘Amis’.
They talk among
each other. I understand only a word here and there. Anthony again turns to me:
“Egbert is your mother a good cook?” he asks. “The very best” I answer. “Good
!” Anthony smiles: “Ask her if she would like to cook for us. We will supply
the groceries. But she must be a good cook.”
“What are groceries?” I ask Anthony. He explains painstakingly.
I finally tell my mother
that they want her to cook for them. She thinks it’s a great idea. She hasn’t
really “cooked” in a long time. But she knows how to make cabbage and potatoes
365 different ways.
She loves to cook,
and she will be able to do it with real butter, real eggs, and fresh meats. She
will use some American but mostly Austrian spices.
This is obviously
a smashing success. Within a few days, the five who eat here, become eight and
sometimes ten.
Among the American
Officer Corp, my mother becomes famous.
And I become the
semi-official interpreter.
My mother, my
sisters and I always eat before our “visitors.” In spite of my urging, and
‘though we are often hungry, mother refuses to use any of “Their Groceries” to
feed us. Until one day, Anthony comes early and sees what we eat.
Anthony (by now we
call him Tony) calls a meeting. It is their unanimous decision, that the
Reitter family henceforth shall eat the same as the “visitors”. This, I have no
doubt, is the beginning of my love of everything “American”.
Months later, the
Black Cat division is transferred to Gmunden, in those days a three hour car
ride from Braunau.
We hate to lose
our “visitors” of whom we have truly grown very fond. Two weeks later, Tony is
heard by our neighbour, at three o’clock in the morning, calling from the narrow
street below:
Main entrance to my home at Stadtplatz 22
He brought a huge
box of “Groceries” and the Reitter family had to get up and have bacon and eggs
and milk with “Tony” at 3 o’clock in the morning.
We did not mind at
all.
For the next two
weeks we lived really well.
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