Thank you Jesus for Swedish summer and true and sincere friendship!
See ya!
The families that made up Knappenberg all lived in two story blue-collar townhouses, connected like row houses on the mountain slopes. They were divided into two areas; Altsiedlung and Neusiedlung. There was a post office, a tobacco shop, the local butcher and bakery, a couple small grocery shops, a small school, the city hall, a curling rink, tennis courts and a soccer field and of course the two pubs Gasthaus Giermaier and Gasthof Steller… Every Austrian village had one, even the villages with only five families. The Austrian beer Gösser was considered equal to holy water and incense when it came to holiness ;).
Our house was one of eight and seven families lived side by side; the Messners, Höfferers, Kaplaners, Amritzers, Sonnerbergersm Graschitzs and the Bergers… My father had both been to school with, been friends with and fought with all the boys in town as well as been in love with all the girls during his youth in the 50’s… My dad would often share stories from a poor, broken post-war Austria. The stories were often both warm hearted and funny yet at the same time sad… In the row of houses opposite ours lived other friends of the families; the Durnbachers and the Speckbauers. In the open area in front of our house was an old hand pump with a beautiful dragon head as the lever. Next to the pump was an old deserted shop with broken windows… Cars were parked everywhere or more precisely shoved in to the small open areas. All the families joined in to help cut fire wood for the winter, shovel snow and watch each others kids… The fellowship was intense and we could often hear the neighbors fight, argue, cry and laugh through the thin walls and open windows… Altsiedlung 128 was where my dad grew up and it became my second home (or first) during my upbringing and many Easters, Christmases and New Years have been celebrated there…
My grandma Anna, born in 1924, lost her husband Ewald in 1975 when a mine caved in. During the war she was hit by shrapnel and still shock her head slightly whenever she would sit down… She grew up in abject poverty and lost her first husband in the war and was left all alone with her first born, her daughter Heidi… She remarried my grandpa and they lost their first two children to jaundice… My grandma Anna, we would call her Oma, was a real card shark and new all the rules and exceptions and loved to teach us kids how to play cards. I would read the newspaper for her at the kitchen table during breakfast and she had a wonderful humor and laughed a lot… I cried a lot in her arms as a kid and she always defended me… Grandma had a strong belief in God but never talked about her faith. She would do the sign of the cross and had a deep respect for both priests and monks.
My dad grew up in a bomb-wrecked Austria that was still occupied by foreign troops and many were starving… My grandpa was most likely a psychic wreck from the war, just like all the other surviving men in that generation. My grandpa was a tough guy who survived five years in Hitler’s army and two years in a prison camp… He was the demolition expert in the mine for many years, womanizer and card shark. People say that he had a great sense of humor and charm combined with a soft heart… Both my dad and Elvira survived their childhood and Austria was rebuilt. At the age of thirteen my dad ran away from home and lived as a hobo / tramp in Italy during some of his teen years, turned to boxing, was convicted for minor felonies and sentenced to juvenile penitentiaries; all this during the 60’s…
Dad and I in Israel...
As a kid I loved my dad more than anything else and his Austria was mine… I always wanted to be like him… He hunted, fished and loved pro boxing; I followed in his footsteps…
See Ya!
I was born in 1973 in the small town of Villach, situated on the border between Austria and Italy… Just before my fourth birthday I came to Sweden… In 1979, during the time when my parents were going through their divorce, I spent some time with grandma Anna and aunt Elvira in Austria. I have lived permanently in Sweden since 1980, at the age of 7. I still spent all my vacations with my grandma in the Southern Alps. On the border to Slovenia, in the small mining town of Knappenberg, situated at 3,600 feet above sea level, Hannes was formed. Knappenberg became the safe haven of my youth and this is where I have my warmest childhood memories. When the weather was clear we could see the Slovenian peaks from our bedroom window on the second floor. Everywhere you turn there is a stone church with an onion steeple and crucifix and then all the images of Maria in each intersection and every service station. Coal heating was the norm (the thin high area added to the scent in the early morning hours). We boys helped chop wood that was used to light the fire.
It was common for people to have rabbits, hens, and pigs, even lambs, all as a means to stretch the family income some. No vast pastures to raise these animals, only the small backyards behind the small houses. Most people also had a small garden where they grew peas, carrots, lettuce etc. They would even dry their own chamomile and peppermint tea. We hosed out grandma’s toilet with the garden hose. It was only warm in the kitchen where the furnace was; the bedrooms were always cold… Completely different times my friends :). When I was really young, grandma would wash our clothes in the same tub that she later used to wash us off in… In the late 70’s and early 80’s southern Europe was still lagging behind Scandinavia. The great boom and financial growth didn’t come until the end of the 80’s. This also began to bring an end to my childhood’s Austria; with all the cobblestone, open coal furnaces and the fellowship…
If we had to call Sweden we would walk down to the phone booths located next to the local tobacco store. I would walk with grandma to the butcher to get meat, to the bakery to get bread early in the morning. All the men wore hats and the senior ladies would all wear scarfs… Boys would wear pants and girls dresses with stockings – that was just the way it was… Everything was masculine or feminine and the different sexes were strongly defined. After work the men would hang out and chill at the local pub and play cards in the haze from all the cigarettes while most women would not work outside the house… We would go trekking in the mountains with the seniors and spent most of our time playing in the woods… I was safe in Knappenberg and it was a firm place in my otherwise rather stormy upbringing.
We played cards a lot ;) and even like to listen to the under the belt jokes the adults laughed at and all the pirate stories. Family, neighbors, and friends would all cram in to the kitchen until late at night. Simple yet rough humor about everyone and everything; the real blue collar life… We would craft weapons of sort; anything from bow and arrows and slingshots to bombs and crossbows. We would sneak smoke cigarettes, cigars and drank radler (beer and Fanta) and diesel (beer and coke)… We would compete to see who ran the fastest, who could do most push ups. We would cut ourselves with knives just to show how tough we were. We fought a lot… We fought in groups with sticks, picks and old bicycle tubes – kid gang against kid gang… As we grew older we of course made out with girls and destroyed things for older young adults that did not like; we would break windows, key cars and other stupid things; in plain English it is called vandalism ;). As a teenager I would ski a lot and read post war novels by my favorite author Konsalik and then all the western paperbacks that were left behind from my father’s teenage years… I always dreamed of another life and the greatest treasure was a brand new car and a beautiful- as- a-model girlfriend ;)…
I will continue to blog about my childhood during my recovery time…
This was part 1.
See Ya