大象传媒

Some years ago my husband and I attended a 鈥楳edieval Banquet鈥� at Ruthin Castle in Wales, enjoying a feast of Welsh lamb flavoured with good-humoured jokes aimed at the English. Sitting across the table was a family of five from Vienna, also enjoying the evening鈥檚 entertainment through the interpretation of an 11-year-old Austrian son. Before the evening ended we exchanged names and addresses with the new friends, promising to keep in touch with each other.

Since then our two families have visited each other鈥檚 homes and countries, and learned much about each other鈥檚 culture and history.

Rudi Pollak a decorated inventor and electrical consultant with the Austrian Government, took us to explore Vienna鈥檚 coffee shops where, as a boy, he was made to collect monies for the German war effort. It offered him the prospect of a little food and warmth when both were in very short supply. At sixteen he was called into the German Air force and trained as a glider pilot. The war ended before he could do active service.

Olga, a medical doctor and Rudi鈥檚 wife, also worked as a pediatric consultant for the Austrian government; covered a large area and had many friends. One of these was Maria who lived in the hills on a large vineyard, or farm. We immediately sensed a feeling of hostility on meeting her and were unable to speak or understand German. We gathered that the British were not Maria鈥檚 favourite guests. Even so, she made every effort through the long evening to entertain her guests, bringing out from her kitchen dishes of meat and sauerkraut, vegetables, freshly baked breads, cheeses, grapes and endless bottles of wine followed by immense portions of apple strudel. Olga interjected with the occasional interpretation to keep us in the general conversation.

Another young couple were guests with us who had escaped from East Germany over the Berlin Wall. The wife had cancer and Olga, a medical doctor, arranged for her to have treatment in Austria.

After the huge repast, and as the hours passed, we were taken into the hills in the early hours of the morning to sample yet more wine from the oak vats in the wine cellars. Already full of food we were again deluged with cakes, breads, cheeses and - yet more wine. The caves went deep into the hills and we were invited to inspect the huge wooden barrels with their inscriptions and dates carved into the wood, and the names of young men who had worked there but were called up to fight and were killed in action. One of these was Maria's brother! We now understood why, at first, she was reluctant to have British guests. However, before we left, she gave us boxes of white and red grapes and wine galore, telling Olga and Rudi they were for her British friends. It seemed the time we were there together that barriers had been brought down and old memories, even bitter ones, softened at the edges.

On another day in Eisenstadt, Hayden鈥檚 birthplace, five of us sat in the sun outside a caf茅 talking about our visit to Maria, and her brother who was killed. My husband, Ian, looked across at Otti (Olga鈥檚 brother-in-law) and told him, 鈥淢y brother was killed when German aircraft bombed the factory where he worked in Bristol.鈥� Otti looked away and then, turning to face us again, quietly told us his father had been killed in Normandy with the German Army when he was a schoolboy. It was a serious and poignant moment in which the two men, and the rest of us, gained a new, deeply personal and enlightening perspective on the horrors of war. Nobody spoke for a minute or two.

This truth was further emphasized a day or two later at Mariazelle, a Centre of pilgrimage, where we joined a celebration feast at the Roman Catholic church and followed the children carrying their baskets of flowers up the hill to the cenotaph near the ski slope. There, at the cross we willingly stood for a short service of remembrance to the Austrian dead in WW2, sharing a kinship of suffering, but with greatly enlightened thought and understanding.

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