大象传媒

The SS, the POWs, the Partisans and the British Liberation
(1944-45)

The SS

One day in the summer 1944 I was looking after the cattle in the fields of our farm imagining the stick in my hand was a spear and I was a hero of a bygone age and I also carried a toy pistol in my pocket 鈥� just in case - when in the midst of my daydreaming I heard this commandeering voice shouting: 鈥淗o, Bub, hierher!鈥� I turned round and saw about a dozen German soldiers standing in the field of clover. They looked frightening with their steel helmets, their grey coats and black boots, and their guns pointing in my direction. I had heard that the SS were hunting the Tito partisans in our area and there they were.

What could I do? I walked towards them grasping the 鈥渉ero鈥檚 spear鈥�, and I was trembling with fear, thinking: 鈥淲hat will they do to me if they find out I am armed?鈥� One of the soldiers asked me if I had heard any gun fire and if I knew where the Partisans might be hiding. I replied I had not heard anything and I did not know. Whereupon the soldier shouted: 鈥淭ell us, or you鈥檒l regret it!鈥�

I just shrugged my shoulders, and I can鈥檛 remember being frightened at all. It was so absurd. But they didn鈥檛 sound like friends. The soldiers exchanged a few words and let me go. Perhaps my blond hair had something to do with it鈥︹��

The POWs

I always looked forward to the Sunday afternoons when a group of Allied Prisoners of War (Brits, New Zealanders and Americans) would come to our farmhouse. They had found out that my Dad, who was an invalid and was not drafted into the Wehrmacht, had some excellent cider in his cellar. And he had a sister (my aunt Mary) much younger than him, and she was a pretty country girl.

The group came with their camp leader, a Mr Atkinson or something, accompanied by their guard who was carrying a rifle with the bayonet planted on top of the gun.

They sat down in the roomy kitchen and asked for some cider, and more cider, and more. They would entertain each other by telling jokes and singing songs like: 鈥淪he鈥檒l be coming round the mountain when she comes鈥︹�� I was 12 at the time and was learning English (the enemy鈥檚 language!) at school, so I was keen to understand as much as possible.

One of the POWs, Bill Willmoth from Sunderland, was our favourite because he also talked to me, my sister and my brother and played games with us. We called him 鈥淯nser Willy鈥�, German for 鈥淥ur William鈥�. But the other guys were more interested in my aunt Mary, so much so that my Granny told me to follow her immediately when she sneaked out of the room with a fellow from New Zealand in tow.

I am not going to go into details here鈥�.

When Mary and Andrew came back the party had become a bit chaotic on account of the cider and schnaps. Someone suggested they had better go back to the camp before it got dark. The German guard could not understand why they would want to go back to imprisonment when it was so nice out here. He was so drunk that he could hardly stand on his feet and had to be wheeled back to camp in a wheelbarrow to the tune of 鈥淐lementine鈥� and 鈥淩ule Britannia鈥�.

For some mysterious reason they did not turn up the next three Sunday afternoons.

When the war ended Our Willy came to our farm saying that his comrades wanted to say thank you to my father by cooking a special dinner for him at the camp. My Dad was a shy and taciturn man and did not understand a word of English. So he sent me instead. I turned up barefoot in my leather shorts. Our POW friends, however, treated me like a proper VIP, cooked a fine meal for me and gave me chocolate and sweets galore.

The Partisans

The last few weeks before the end of the war were the most disturbing and dangerous. We found refugees from Hungary staying at our farm, German deserters hiding in the hay loft, and a troup of Tito partisans looting the farm and threatening to shoot my dad.
One afternoon I saw a lone partisan 鈥� we thought he was Bulgarian 鈥� standing in the yard, his submachine gun pointing towards the living quarters. Suddenly he fired a few rounds into the stack of wood that was piled up outside the house. Nobody knew what he was going to do next.

At that moment I spotted an English soldier coming up the other path. He had no helmet on, only a beret, and in his right hand he was holding a pistol. He shouted something that sounded like 鈥淧iss鈥︹�� and signalled that the 鈥淏ulgarian鈥� should drop his submachine gun and disappear. The privateer war so taken by surprise that he dropped his weapon and ran downhill into the valley. I was most impressed.

But what was the British soldier doing up here in the mountain all on his own? He was asking for help. He told us that his reconnaissance vehicle had got stuck in one of the deep and narrow cart tracks and would my dad come with a pair of his oxen and try and pull it out? My Dad obliged and, of course, I had to go along too and witness the rescue operation. Our neighbour was already at the scene with his cart horses and finally a combination of horse and oxen power pulled the vehicle free. I like to think that this time it was the British that were impressed.

Liberation, Occupation and a Perforated Appendix (May 1945)

May 8th 1945 was the turning point. In the weeks before it had looked like the world was coming to an end. There was not a single stem of grass on the pastures, and all our cattle had been taken by the partisans anyway. There was hardly anything for us to eat 鈥� the last pot of lard had been pinched by a German deserter one night. I still do not know how we survived. We were six people living on the farm: my Granny, my Dad, my aunt Mary, and we three children.

Once the grass started to grow there was hope in the air and a will to persevere. We were lucky to be in the British Zone, because everybody feared the Russians.
And it helped to see there were no bombers in the sky any more. Austria had been destroyed under the Nazi regime, and now we had our old mayor back replacing the Nazi Ortsgruppenleiter. Everybody felt a sense of freedom. And the occupying forces of the British Army did a good job in our province (Carinthia).

One day we needed their help. Late in November 1945 I was diagnosed with acute appendicitis. As there were no ambulances available my dad had to take me to Wolfsberg hospital by train which meant an hour鈥檚 journey sitting on a wooden bench in an unheated carriage. I arrived at the hospital half dead and in terrible pain. I was immediately operated on , the appendix was already perforated, and so the doctors saved my life under adverse circumstances.

After three weeks came the day for me to go back home. I was too weak to walk and nobody in our area had a car. So my aunt Mary (you remember her) approached the British Secret Service Office in Lavam眉nd and asked them if they could help. They promised somebody would be at the hospital waiting in a jeep to take me back home.

And there it was 鈥� a jeep! I had never in my life been in a car let alone in an army jeep with a British officer. I was bundled in, well wrapped in blankets, because it was well below zero. The snow reached up to half the height of the car. And the roads were like ice rinks. A good job we did not know what was going to happen on that journey to Lavam眉nd on the December 5th 1945, St Nicolaus Day.

It was eery. In the dusk you could see Krampusse (devils), who accompany St. Nicolaus on his rounds, running about rattling their chains. And it was bitterly cold and misty. No wonder that our jeep came to an abrupt halt just 1 kilometer from the hospital. The driver nearly drove into the back of a trailer that was parked on the dark road.

The British officer muttered a few words that we could not understand and then we drove off. Down we drove through the valley until we came to a slight bend in the road. Then, instead of following the bend our jeep went straight on, pushed through a barrier of snow and bumped down a slope finally coming to a halt in the middle of a field. The snow was knee deep. My aunt was screaming, the driver was swearing, but I seem to remember I found it very exciting.

The officer told us to stay put as he climbed up the slope back onto the road where he was hoping some big army vehicle would turn up soon. It was pitch dark though. He did not have to wait long. He waved down the two headlamps he saw coming and 鈥� lo and behold 鈥� it was a British army truck.

Soon we were towed back on to the road and we could continue our adventurous journey. After about 30 minutes my aunt said she did not think we were going in the right direction. Would the driver please check. At the next crossroads the officer got out of the car and he had to climb up the posts of the traffic signs, wipe the snow off the names and find out where we should be going. And it was the wrong direction 鈥� it was the road to Klagenfurt.

That鈥檚 when I learned a few English swear words.

We then turned round and headed towards Lavam眉nd. We thanked him for the eventful journey but before he said goodbye (I can still smell the schnaps!) he whispered into my ear: 鈥淧lease don鈥檛 tell anybody about this!鈥� .

I have kept my promise 鈥� to this day.

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