BRENNECKE NAME STUDY

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Location: Vienna, Austria

Surname/tag: Brennecke

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1 How to Participate
2 Goals
3 The History of the Brennecke Family

How to Participate

Please contact the Study's coordinator Hans-Friedrich Brennecke or post a comment at the foot of the page. If you have any questions, just ask. Thanks!

Goals

This is a One Name Study to collect together in one place everything about one surname and the variants of that name as well as to preserve the history of this line of the Brennecke Family. The hope is that other researchers like you will join our study to help make it a valuable reference point for people studying lines that cross or intersect.

The History of the Brennecke Family

FOREWORD

The reason for researching our family history were four documents, copies of birth and marriage certificates from 1939, which I received from my parents. Through these papers I learned that the family originally, came from the Kingdom of Hanover in Lower Saxony and that my great-grandfather, Jürgen Christian Wilhelm Brennecke, had left his home and family during the Prussion War of 1866 and had settled in the city of Znojmo in Moravia, at that time still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I became interested in the circumstances that caused him to leave his home and who his parents, his ancestors - my ancestors - were.

My first contact many years ago, was the Parish of Berkum-Peine and Schmedenstedt. Information I received from there dated back to around 1600.

The origin of our family name pointed to a fiefdom by the name of Betkenrode also mentioned as Brenneckenbrück, in the vicinity of which the family's ancestors could be traced back to 1460. Brenneckenbrueck - not far from Berkum-Peine - can be found next to Gifhorn near Brunswick.

Whenever time and work allowed it, I looked for new information. However, it was only the age of computers and the Internet that, in addition to personal research on site, brought me an important step forward in my family research. Especially historical knowledge was easier to acquire and ultimately descendants of the siblings of my grandfather Max Brennecke could be found in Germany.

This was probably the best result I could have wished for as a reward for this work.

However, I would also like to thank all those, especially Inge and Karl Wozilka and Willhelm Brennecke, who helped with memories, documents and a lot of energy to clarify many questions of the more recent history of our family.

ALLEIN LEBENDIG BLEIBT WAS DEM VERGESSEN IST ENTRISSEN (Only what is saved from being forgotten will remain alive")

Annotation

Please note that D 000 Numbers in the text point to relevant documents which one can find in the document section. B 000 Numbers indicate letters written by family members, whilst F 000 Numbers stand for photographs of family members.

Some occuring vocabulary:

Title Translation Acreage tilled Vollspanner - Full Measure farmer Halbspanner - Half Measure farmer Grosskotter - Great cottager Mittelkotter - Middle cottager Kleinkotter - Small cottager Brinksass - Cottager with a house but no fields Kotsass - Like Brinksass or Kotter

THE FAMILY NAME

How often have we wondered where our name comes from and what its actual meaning is. Many of us grew up assuming that the name is related to the parts of the word TO BURN (brennen) and CORNER (Ecke) and may indicate an area where coal, alcohol, or the like was burned / distilled. Well that's not the case, because the big book of surnames - age, origin, meaning - Horst Naumann, Bechtermünz-Verlag ”has the following explanation for us:

The name Brennecke is derived from the first name

Brendico

which was first mentioned in 1245 and from

Brendeko filius Hildebrandi

(Brendeko son of Hildebrand) which is mentioned in registers in 1530.

It is the German short form of the name Hildebrandt.

More details can be found in the „Historisches Deutsches Vornamenbuch“ by Wilfried Seibicke, Volume I, A - E, Verlag de Gruyter.

The first name Brand is mentioned there as a male short form, dimunitive. A composition with –brand, esp. from Hildebrand; was formerly very popular in Northern Germany. (Bahlow 1972, 56) also Brandt, Brant; Variation: Brando.

Confirmations: Bishop Brand = Hildebrand von Bremen 13th century, (Bahlow 1977, 72 f); 1245 Dimunitive Brendiko, 1303 local Brendeke, from 1273 Brand in Ostfahlen, (Zoder I., 289 f.) (with equation 1358-1369); from 1311 Bremen, Dimunitive Brandeke, Branneke, (Carstens 14); from 1344 Münsterland, Dimunitive Brendikin(-us) 1334, (Hartig 1967, 179); Halle / Saale before 1350, (Jacob 93); 1350 Brendeke Lübeck, (Bahlow 1977, 75); 24 times Brand and once Brent 1327 - 1402 (thereof 13 times before 1360), 8 times Dimunitive Brendeke 1320 - 1362 Braunschweig, (Scharf 88); 4 times Branth and 4 times Brendeko, -e Lübeck before 1350, (Reimpell 15); 8 times Brant Hildesheim 1350 - 1404 (Bonhoff 53); 1389 Barth / Pommern (K. Müller 181); Prantlein lower class name in Regensburg 1325 - 1349, (Kohlheim 1977, 315); Brendlin Würzburg 15th century (Meyer-Erlach 1933, 20); 2 times 14 and 15th century Quedlinburg, (Kleemann 197f); Brand, Brendeke and others Brendekinus in Reval (15 times) u. Riga (3 times) 14./15. Century, (Feyerabend 4); once each 1403 - 1410 (Anklam, Bruinier 170); Brand Krekenoghe 1407 Hanover, (Bahlow 1977, 73 and 1972, 100); 1404-1480 Cologne, (F. Linnartz 17); 1465 Brentlein Kronacher Court Book, (Arneth 1956, 198); 3 times 15th and 4 times 16th century Wismar, (Crull 11); 2 times Wernigerode 1525 - 1528, (Jacobs 1889, 163); Brand Gerda 1570 Rostock, (Bahlow 1977, 73 1972, 100); 16th century Quedlinburg; (Kleemann 1099; Brand Giesselmann 1575, Brand Loges 1611, Brand Krafell 1618, Brand Gosewisch 1638, Brand Schutte 1645, Brand Jakob 1674, Brand Rosenhagen 1681 in Hannover, (Stuutmann 42 ff); Leer 1618, Brand Eichorst 1633 glazier in Schwerin, (AfS 1928, 385);

"The use of the short form of the first name was of a very tough durability and was still in use at the end of the 17th century" e.g. 1689 Hanover, 1690 Hildesheim, (Zoder I. 289f); East and West Frisia., (Brons 1877, 31 u. 88; Düsseldorf 1968).

Family names were used from around the 13th century onwards.

Brenneckenbrück Page 2.

Brenneckenbrück Page 1.

East of Hanover is the city of Gifhorn, near which the field name Brenneckenbrück can be found on the so-called Landwehr Canal and in Gifhorn itself the street name Brennecke's Berg can be found. Thanks to the help of Mr. Bernhard Williges and Dr. Walter Heering from the Heide Pharmacy in Müden an der Aller, who rummaged through the local archives for me, I was able to clarify the historical background to Brenneckenbrück. The following document, the Chronicle of Betkenrode - Brenneckenbrück, shows the change in the family name very well. If Hans Brendeke is still found as a tenant in 1615, we can find the name variants Brendeken, Brencke, Brendecke and finally the name Brenneckenbrück in 1747

THE COAT OF ARMS

Hans Brennecke

Originally only two coats of arms could be assigned to the name Brennecke. With the kind support of the Heraldic Community of Westfahlen, who should be mentioned here with thanks, it was possible to historically verify the depicted coats of arms 1 and 2 and subsequently to find the corresponding pages in Siebmacher's coat of arms books in the Austrian National Library.

In the meantime, Mr. Pfeiffer from Germany advised me that there are other coats of arms. The results of my research in the picture archive of the Austrian National Library are described below as coats of arms 3 and 4. They are depicted in the German coat of arms. Coat of arms 5 and 6 from Duttenstedt, district of Braunschweig and from Alikendorf, district of Ballenstedt are registered under application numbers 3614/41 and 3854/42 in the DWR (Deutsche Wappenrolle), but have not been published.

from Siebmacher.

1st coat of arms.

1st coat of arms

Fox in a meadow in front of three fir trees. A deer rises from the helmet. It is a Hanoverian family crest headed by Heinrich C. Gustav Brennecke, riding forester to Misburg. The coat of arms goes back to an older one, of Friedrich Christian Brennecke around 1780 in Mechthausen near Seesen. The leadership authorization can also be traced back to this. But the coat of arms has officially been used by this forester since 1860. It is shown in this form in Siebmacher's coat of arms.

from Siebmacher.

2nd coat of arms.

2nd coat of arms

Also comes from the Hanover area. It was submitted, and was probably redesigned in the taste of the time, by Dr. W. Brennecke of Braunschweig (Brunswick). This coat of arms also goes back to the older one of Friedrich Christian Brennecke Mechthausen near Seesen and 1780.

3rd coat of arms.

3rd coat of arms

Brennecke from Gebhardshagen (Braunschweig / Brunswick). Divided shield, a walking bear in gold on top, a small black tip in blue below, from which natural-colored flames burst. On the blue-gold beaded helmet with blue-gold blankets, a peasant dressed in blue with gold cuffs and a golden cloak with a blue, gold-sculpted hat, shouldering a silver, gold-stalked scythe with his left hand on his hips. (Newly adopted in 1930.) Applicant: Paul Brennecke, elementary school teacher in Brolterrode, Herrschaft Schmalkalden district. Registered on November 22, 1930 No. 72 (1587/30)

4th Coat of arms.

4th coat of arms Brennecke from Heven, city of Witten a. d. Ruhr (Oldest known ancestor in the male line is Ludwig Brennecke, carpenter, father of Georg Brennecke,, carpenter, born in Heven September 17, 1826, died unknown) In the shield of red and gold in the flame-cut diagonally divided, an obliquely placed sword, the blade of which forms an acorn over the division, the entire figure in changed colors. On the helmet with red and gold covers, a flight cut in a golden-red diagonal to the right. Newly accepted in 1969 by the applicant Rudolf Brennecke, business economist in Wattenscheid, for himself and the other descendants in the male line of his father Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Brennecke born March 24, 1907 designed by Kurt Schweder, Essen-Steele. Registered on August 20, 1969 under No. 6350-69.

Brendeke coat of arms

The Dutch Brende(c)ke family is currently the best known oldest connection to our family. The roots reach back to the Brenneckenbrück estate, where their oldest proven ancestor was recorded in 1460.

Brendeke .

BRENDEKE FAMILY HISTORY (BRENDECKE)

The Brendeke or Brendecke family, now based in Holland, is probably the original and more extensive line of our family. The oldest ancestor Tile Brendecke comes from Brendeckenbruck (Brenneckenbrück). This form of name appears not only in the documents describing the tenants of the Brenneckenbrück estate , but also in the early entries in the parish register in the Kingdom of Hanover. This form of name is also logical due to the secured meaning of our family name - Brendico and Brendeko filius Hildebrandi. Brenneckenbrück is located about 27 km east of Peine, where our oldest ancestor, Barthold Brennecke, is mentioned in the fruit interest register around 1600. Hans the Elder Brendecke lived between 1555 and 1634, we do not know his siblings by name, so that no relation to any godfathers can be established here. Only the accumulation of the first names Henning, Heinrich and Hans allow for assumptions.

HISTORY OF THE BRENNECKE FAMILY

The church records of the parish of Berkum-Peine-Schmedenstedt only begin in 1681 with baptisms, in 1689 with weddings and in 1719 with burials. There are gaps in the marriage books between 1700 and 1723 and between 1711 and 1718 the church register is difficult to read. Since the spelling of the name varied greatly in the 18th century, we have chosen today's spelling, but have included it where a variant was detectable.

Barthold Brennecke

Around 1600 the ancestor of our family is mentioned in the fruit interest register of the municipality of Berkum bei Peine, Hanover. Barthold was the father of

Hans Brennecke

who is listed in the fruit interest register of the municipality Berkum bei Peine in 1618. Hans was the father of

Heinrich 1 Brennecke

who died before 1719. His wife - Hinrich Brendeken's mother, widow Homans - whose actual name we do not know, was born in 1665 and mother of the son Heinrich 2 Brennecke. She died on October 20, 1745 at the age of 80 years and 6 months.

Birth Book Entries:

Henrich Brendicke's son Hans: born 7.4.1682 died 14.1.1756 (D 002)

Hinrich Breneken son Hinrich: born May 24, 1687

Heinrich Brenneckes daughter Bou ...: born 20.05.1689

Heinrich 2 Brennecke

was born on May 24th, 1687. Entries in the register of the parish of Berkum near Peine (D 002) mention that he died on January 9, 1756 at the age of 69. His undisclosed wife, born in 1692, died on November 1st, 1769. They were the parents of

Berend Brennecke

from Berkum, who was born on April 6, 1730 in Peine near Hanover as the 10th child of his parents and died on October 4, 1787 at the age of 57 in Schmedenstedt. Birth Book Entries (D 001)

the following godfathers are listed.

A non-direct relationship is the "godfather". This is can also mean a good friend. In the past, however, this was often the term for a godfather who was often in a direct relationship and a sibling.

However, based on the respective years of birth, we assume that these are siblings of the baptized child.

Christian Brenneke: born 5.7.1721

Heinrich Brennecken: born 27.1.1725

Anna Margareta: born October 19, 1727

Behrnt Brenneken: born April 17, 1728

Ilse Brennecke: born April 17, 1728

Of the last two children it is not explicitly mentioned that they were twins, but note that the family name for each was spelled differntly.

Berend Brennecke was married on September 26, 1758 in Schmedenstedt to Anna Ilse Degering, who was born on December 3, 1739 in Schmedenstedt and died on November 5, 1810, after 23 years of widowhood, at the age of 71 in Schmedenstedt. They were the parents of

Johann Friedrich Brennecke

who was born on March 3, 1762 in Schmedenstedt near Hanover and died on December 5, 1853 in Schmedenstedt. Since June 26th, 1774 he was married in Schmedenstedt to Anna Elisabeth Meyer, who was born on October 25th, 1774 in Schmedenstedt and died on December 3rd, 1821. Anna Elisabeth Meier is written Meyer in the church book. It can be assumed that in 1938 the spelling was "Germanized" called "Aryan evidence". The spelling of the church register was therefore adopted. Entries in the birth register of the following siblings

on February 10th, 1760 Berend Brendecke baptized a daughter, Name of Ilse Maria

on April 18, 1762, Berend Brennecke baptized a daughter, Name Anna Maria

on August 5th, 1764 Berend Brendecke baptized a son, Name of Berend Heinrich

There is also an entry regarding a brother of Johann Friedrich Brennecke: on January 25th, 1760 Berend Brennecke was born a son - name Johann Berend.

This is in close proximity to Ilse Maria, born on February 10th, 1760, so that it could have been twins. It is not known why the baptism was not registered.

Johann Friedrich and Anna Elisabeth Meyer were the parents of

Johan Behrend Brencke born 7.1.1799

Johan Georg Brennecken born April 29, 1802

Johann Heinrich Behrend Brennecke born 11/22/803

Johann Friedrich Ludewig Brennecke born March 27, 1806

Ilse Margaretha Elisabeth Brennecke born July 20, 1809

Johann Christian Ferdinand Brennecke born 2.5.1812 and

Julius Wilhelm Brennecke

of him we have the certificate from the church book of the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Schmedenstedt, born and baptized (D 003) (D 006), born in 1816 no. 4 which says: the name of the child Julius Wilhelm, birthday March 1, 1816, 8 o'clock in the evening. Parents Halbspaenner Johann Friedrich Brennecke and his wife Anna Elisabeth, née Meyer, christening day March 10, 1816 to Schmedenstedt.

Gevattern 1. Wilhelm 2. Julius Siedentop 3. Anna Dorothea Siedentop 4. Ilse Margaretha Niemaier.

We also know from the certificate from the church book of the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Schmedenstedt, called up and married, year 1840 no. 2- 10.7.1840 (D008) th name of the groom Brennecke, Julius Wilhelm, age 24 1/3 year, father of the groom, Johann Friedrich Brennecke, grandfather in a local Halbspaenner Hof. Name of the bride Johanna Dorothea Maria, née Schridde, age 23, father of the bride Johann Georg Christian Schridde, oldfather in a local Kothhofe. Copulation Day July 10, 1840 in Mütze.

Copulation in Mütze (Bonnet) ”means that the bride“ with Mütze ”(.ie without wreath and veil) had broken the vow of chastity before marriage. At that time the pastor who was obliged to register the wedding had to ask the question of chastity.

We know from the wife, Johanna Dorothea Maria Schridde, the certificate from the church book of the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Schmedenstedt, born and baptized (D 007), born in 1817 No. 13. The name of the child Schridde Johanna Dorothea Maria and the birthday on June 26, 1817 in the evening at 9 a.m. Parents Johann Jürgen Christian Schridde, Kothsass and his wife Maria Dorothea, née Söllig. Baptism day July 3, 1817 at Schmedenstedt.

Gevattern 1. Jürgen Meier, 2. Johann Schridde von Düngelbeck, 3. Ilsa Maria Leiner, 4. Dorothea Keinetorf.

The wife Maria Dorothea Söllig is written in the birth certificate of her child, but in her own birth entry Anna Dorothea. It is likely that either her husband, or more likely the registrar, was wrong about the child's birth registration. The nickname may have been Dorothea because it was common then to use the last baptismal name as a nickname. Julius Wilhelm Brennecke's marriage certificate mentions the father of the bride with Johann Georg Christian Schridde, who, however, was named Johann Jürgen Christian Schridde according to the birth registration of his daughter. Since he probably announced the birth of his daughter to the pastor himself, the latter should be correct. Johanna Dorothea Maria died in 1897 on April 29 at the age of 80. They were the parents of

Ilsa Maria Dorothea Christiane Brennecke born 14.9.1840 Julius Heinrich Wilhelm Brennecke born November 9, 1842 Heinrich Friedrich Christian Brennecke born 7.4.1848, died 6.9.1866 Ilse Dorothee Wilhelmine Brennecke born 9/25/1850 Carl Friedrich Ludwig Brennecke born 3.9.1853 Heinrich Friedrich Carl b. January 21, 1856 and our ancestor

Jürgen Christian Wilhelm Brennecke

In the certificate from the church book of the ev. - luth. Kirchengemeinde Schmedenstedt, Born and Baptized (D 004) (D 009), Born 1845, No. 17 is written: Name of the child Brennecke Jürgen Christian Wilhelm, birthday 5/8/1845, 9 a.m., conjugal. Parent farmer Julius Wilhelm Brennecke and his wife Johanna Dorothe Maria, née Schridde baptism day 10.8.1845 to Schmedenstedt. Gevattern 1. Jürgen Walking, 2. Christian Brennecke from Woltorf, 3. Elisabeth Mayer. The godfather Christian Brennecke from Woltorf, mentioned in the birth certificate of Jürgen Christian Wilhelm Brennecke, was a brother of the child's father Julius Wilhelm Brennecke and may have been identical to the previously mentioned Johann Christian Ferdinand Brennecke. In the mid-nineteenth century, Jürgen Christian Wilhelm came to Moravia, Czech Republic. Unfortunately, it is not known why he left home to start a new life in a foreign country that was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time.

However, it could be explained by the so-called German war that started in 1866: There was a conflict between Austria and Germany. Preussen issued an ultimatum to Hanover, Saxony and Hesse-Kassel to withdraw from the Bundestag's mobilization decision, but at the end of June three Prussian armies marched into Bohemia. The Austrian defeat is inevitable and the Prussian army occupies Prague and Brno, and reaches the Thaya river on July 13th, leading to a preliminary peace on July 26th. More on this under "Where we come from - The War of 1866" in family history.

Jürgen Christian Wilhelm was 21 years old at the time and might have come to the Czech Republic in the course of this war.

He was 39 when he married (D 016) Maria Wuck born 31.8.1865 (D 014) in the Czech Republic on February 6, 1884, who became our great-grandmother Maria Brennecke. She was the daughter of Florian Wuck also Vuck, castellan from Jaispitz today Jevisovice north of Znojmo, died 24.2.1902 (D 011) in Znojmo and Terezia, his wife, née Duschberger, who was born 24.4.1835 (D 013) in Vienna and died 7.12.1909 in Znojmo (D 010) . The bride was 18 years old. Marriage Certificate of Florian Wuckand Terezia Duschberger (D 015).

Jürgen Christian Wilhelm was probably not a poor man. As can be seen from a document that regulates the legacy of the children of minors and minors after Maria's death, he and Maria owned a house in Znojmo. I (Hans Brennecke) also remember that my father told me that there was a furniture trade and furniture production in Znojmo in operation by the family.

The death certificate for Jürgen Christian Wilhelm: Gau Niederdonau Pol. Bez. Znaim Pfarre Znaim, number 889 Extract from the Book of the Dead of the evangelical parish augs. Known as Znaim Volume II Sheet 10 Number 2 (D 019) informs us that on September 16, 1938 Wilhelm Brennecke died in Znaim, Höckstrasse 12, Castle Administrator in Retirement. Place of birth Schmedenstädt, Hanover, on August 5, 1845, widower, from myocardium ... illegible. Funeral on September 18, 1831 [error] at the communal cemetery in Znojmo.

Maria Brennecke, née Wuck

We have the birth and baptism certificate Protectorate Cechia a Morava, Moravian-Silesian Region, District Budejovice, Diocese Brno, Deanery Jevisovice, Parish Jevisovice. (D 014)

In the Baptism Book Volume II, page 360, it is confirmed that in Jevisovice house No. 65 born in the year of salvation in 1865 on August 29, 1865 and christened on August 31, 1865, Vuck Maria Antonia married daughter of the father Florian Vuck, graefl. Zimmervärter [sic] in Jaispitz, son of Joseph Vuck, shoemaker in H. Leon Stadt [uncleared] and Maria née Mader, Catholic, and mother Therezia, daughter of Josef Duschberger, official in Vienna and Magdalena née Heider was born.

Godfather Josef Duschberger, k. k. Official in Vienna, Antonia's wife.

In addition, the death certificate (D 017) number 5002 Gau Niederdonau, Pol. Bez. Znojmo, Diocese of Brno, parish of St. Niklas, Znojmo before, from the dying book Tom. VII Fol. 552 testifies that in Znaim Höckstrasse 12 died on December 5th, 1913 of heart defects and on December 7th the year J. and was buried in Znojmo: Brennecke Maria, 48 years, born 29.2.1865 in Jaispitz pol. Bez.Znaim, private in Znojmo, married.

The mourning obituary has been preserved. (D 018)

Maria, tells Inge Wozilka, her granddaughter, was sick, bedridden and paralyzed long before her death. She married at 18, gave birth to six children and died at 48, twelve years after the birth of the last and stillborn child.

Jürgen Christian Wilhelm Brennecke and Maria Antonia Wuck or Vuck, as is also recorded, were the parents of

Wilhelmine (Vilemina Maria) Brennecke married Striz b. November 2, 1883 Friedrich Wilhelm (Bedrich Vilem) born May 28, 1889 Heinrich Brennecke (Jindrich Konstantin) born November 8, 1894 Margarethe Brennecke (Marketa Terezie Konstancie) born February 17, 1896 and an unbaptized female infant September 11, 1901 and our ancestor

Max Brennecke

From the certificate of birth and baptism of the Brno diocese, Jaispitz parish, we see: Born on August 1, 1885 in Jaispitz House No. 1 and christened on August 9, Max, Roman Catholic, son of Wilhelm Brennecke, valet in Jaispitz, who is the son of Wilhelm Brennecke, farmer in Schmedenstedt (in Hanover [sic] and Dorothea Maria his wife, née Schridde and by Maria daughter of Florian Wuck, castle administrator in Jaispitz and Theresia, his wife, née Duschberger, child's godfather and godmother Florian Wuck, castle administrator in Jaispitz, Anna Baltazzi née Countess Ugarte, owner of the castle and estate in Jaispitz.

From Grandfather Max we have a passport of the Czech Republic isssued in Vienna on July 6, 1923 with visas from the Republic of Austria and the home address first in Vienna 16. Koppstrasse 84 and then corrected in Vienna 8. Blindengasse 8. An identity card from 1947 in which he is described as a pensioner, 168 cm tall, oval face, blue eyes and brown mottled hair.

From Grandfather Max we have a passport issued by embassy of the Czech Republic in Vienna on July 6, 1923 with visas from the Republic of Austria and the home address os first given as in Vienna 16. Koppstrasse 84 and then corrected to Vienna 8. Blindengasse 8. An identity card from 1947 in which he is described as a pensioner, 168 cm tall, oval face, blue eyes and brown mottled hair.

We have a large number of his school reports, a confirmation from the Moravian Museum of Business that he has graduated from the Imperial-Royal Technical School in Wal. Meseritsch and attended a specialist's course for carpentry machines, dated July 29, 1905.

We have a trade license for furniture from 1913 and a trade license for carpentry from Znojmo from 1914.

From Vienna, we have certificates from Bank Nikolaus Gostonyi & Sons, Vienna and Budapest from 1921, and from Continental Bank from 1922.

Austrian citizenship was conferred to him in 1947.

The death certificate from 1948 reports as follows: Civil registry office Vienna-Inner City Mariahilf No. 1435/48 Brennecke Max, pensioner, Roman Catholic, resident of Vienna 8. Blindengasse 8 died in the apartment on October 12, 1948 at 11.45 a.m. . He was born on 1.8.1885 in Jaispitz, Czechoslovakia, parish Jaispitz II / 61. Cause of death: calcification of the arteries, cerebral apoplexia, stroke. Grandfather Max was 63 years old.

Hans Brennecke: I remember that when I was 4 years old I was with my grandparents in the Blindengasse on the day of his death. Grandfather Max was no longer available at the time and was lying in bed in the bedroom of the small apartment. I still remember that I was always sent to the bedroom to see how grandpa was doing. I also remember grandmother pouring black coffee into him. I also have another memory before that time, when grandfather went for a walk with me in the garden of the house.

Max was married to

Josefine Nechodom.

The marriage certificate from 1923 confirms: number 2082 diocese Vienna, Land Nieder Österr. Federal city of Vienna, parish for healing. Family in Ottakring. In the local wedding book Tom. In 1923 it is attested that on April 2, 1923, in the presence of the witnesses Wenzel Styblo and ... illegible Fiala, Max Brennecke and Josefa Nechodom were married.

Her birth on March 9, 1883 is recorded in Lesonice with the baptism and birth certificate of grandmother Josefine Nechodom. Roman Catholic, married daughter of Josef Nechodom from Lesonice, son of Klara Nechodom, and Juliana, daughter of Josef Trzil from Popovic and his wife Katerina, née Cosmak.

The death certificate confirms that Josefine died on March 6, 1967 at 10.30 a.m. in her apartment in Vienna, 15 Gablenzgasse 35, as a result of pneumonia, pulmonary emphysema. Grandmother Josefine was 84 years old.

Max and Josefine were the parents of

Johann (Jan Evangeli) Brennecke

from him we have two birth and christening certificates from the diocese of Brno, parish of St. Niklas, Znojmo. Certificate of birth and baptism Gau Niederdonau, Znojmo district, Brno diocese, St. Niklas, Brennecke Johann legiimate son of the father Brennecke Max, b. 1.8.1885 in Jaispiz, district Znojmo, discount accountant, married son of Brennecke Wilhelm, valet in Jaispiz and Maria née. Wuck. Child's parents married on 2.4.1923 Vienna XVI and the mother Nechodom Josefa, servant in Znojmo, born 9.3.1883 in Lesonice, married daughter of Nechodom Josef, coachman in Lesonitz and Juliane née Trzil. Godfather Nechodom Antonia, daughter of Josef Nechodom, Lesonice. The baptized name Jan Evangeli.

Confirmation of death from 16.9.1987 civil registry office Weissenkirchen in der Wachau 27/1987, Brennecke Johann von Wien 14. Breitenseerstrasse 110/22/14, born on 19.12.1907 Znaim, CSSR, Pf. St. Niklas in Znaim V / 539, died 15 September 1987 at 6.30 am in Albrechtsberg an der Grossen Krems, Eppenberg 27.

Johann was married to

Pauline Schwaha.

Record 2341of the Imperial City of Vienna, Pol. 14, Diocese of Vienna, Parish Penzing, Last Post 89, from the local birth and baptismal book Tom. 47 fol. 116 testifies that in Vienna XIV. Beckmanngasse No. 38 born on June 25th, 1908 and christened on June 28th, 1908: Schwaha Pauline married daughter of father Schwaha Josef, r.k. Auxiliary worker, born on September 27, 1879 in Vienna, Parish Reindorf, Vienna, son of Schwaha Josef and Juliana née Finger and mother Rosboud Katharina Anna, r.k. born on July 23, 1886 in Vienna, Hernals Parish, daughter of Rosboud Thomas and Anna née Michalek. Godfather Glos Maria, postman's wife, Vienna XIII Kuefsteingasse No. 52.r.k.

The child parents were married April 15, 1939. Marriage certificate registry office 21 Vienna Penzing No. 768/39 Bride groom Johann Brennecke r.k. resident in Vienna 14. Märzstrasse 115, born on December 19, 1907 in Znaim kath. Parish of St. Niklas, Znojmo, No. V / 539 and the Pauline Schwaha r.k. resident in Vienna 14. Beckmanngasse 41, born on June 25, 1908 in Vienna cath. Parish Penzing 47/116 married on 5 June 1939 in front of the registry office 21 Vienna - Penzing.

Father of husband Max Brennecke living in Wien 8, Father of bride Josef Schwaha last lived in Vienna 14. mother of bride, Anna Schwaha née Rosboud, last living in Vienna 14. Marriage of the man's parents on April 2, 1923 in Catholic. Parish Ottakring,

Death book civil registry office Korneuburg 177/1998 Brennecke Pauline, resident Vienna 14. Breitenseerstrasse 110, Roman cath. Born July 25, 1908 in Vienna Pf.Penzing 47/116 died on June 27, 1998 at 9.30 a.m. in Bisamberg, Föhrenstrasse 21. Registered on June 29, 1998 Funeral Monday 6/7/1998 12.00 p.m. Baumgarten cemetery, Vienna 14.Waidhausenstrasse 52, group 43, row 8, no. 6

Pauline had two siblings, Franz Schwaha and Anna a half sister. A letter from the parish office Lochau, Bregenz district, was received on November 12, 1991 as follows:

Dear Ms. Brennecke, Unfortunately I have to inform you that your half sister, Ms. Anni Vonach, passed away on June 1st, 1983. With kind regards, registration office Lochau signed illegible

Johann and Pauline had three children

Elfriede Brennecke born 27.07.1928 died 28.06.2007

Hans Brennecke born June 11, 1944

Wieslaw Brennecke born May 4, 1956

HISTORY OF THE CZECH GERMAN LINE

Jürgen Christian Wilhelm Brennecke and Maria Antonia Wuck or Vuck, as it is also recorded, were Max's parents as well as of

Wilhelmine (Vilemina Maria) Brennecke married Striz born November 2, 1883

Friedrich Wilhelm (Bedrich Vilem) born May 28, 1889 died August 3, 1890

Heinrich Brennecke (Jindrich Konstantin) born November 8, 1894 in Moravian Ostrava died September 6, 1969 in Schorndorf

Margarethe Brennecke (Marketa Terezie Konstancie) born February 17, 1896 died in 1988 in Schorndorf

an unbaptized female infant born / died September 11, 1901

Max emmigrated to Vienna in 1923 and became an Austrian citizen July 18, 1947, whilst his brothers and sisters who remained in the Czech Republik were forced to leave the country in 1945 and travelled via Austria to Baden Wuertenberg, where they settled in various places around Stuttgart.

With Max the Family Line started in Austria. From the other siblings our Line of the Brennecke Family in Germany (re-)developed.

WILHELMINE (VILEMINA MARIA) was born on November 2, 1883 in Jesenice. She was married to Prof. Eduard Striz. The two met at her parents' home in Znaim, Höckstrasse 12, where the Striz family also lived. Eduard Striz had a brother, Oskar, who died in World War I. Eduard studied mathematics and later became k. k. Professor and director of the girls' high school in Brno.

They were the parents of

Gertrude Striz born in 1914

married to

Herbert Pokorny born in 1913 died in 2006

You are the parents of

Heinz Pokorny Born in Brno in 1942

Helmut Pokorny born 21.09.1950 he is a twin brother of

Helga Pokorny born 21.09.1950 she is a twin sister of Helmut Pokorny married to Rainer Wörle born

children Gunhild Gaby

Ilse Pokorny married Gölz born in 1952 married to Frieder Gölz

children Hannes born 13.09 ... ... Christine

FRIEDRICH WILHELM is mentioned in the information of the Moravian National Archives as Bedrich Vilem. The child was born on May 28, 1889 and died a year later on August 3, 1890.

HEINRICH BRENNECKE who, according to information from the Moravian State Archives in Brno, bore the name Jindrich Konstantin, was born on November 8, 1894 in Moravian Ostrava. He was with the k.u.k. Navy in Pula. Heinrich was married to Maria Josefa Hollinski, who was friends with Margarete Brennecke. Maria Holinski was born on August 15th. Born in 1896, the daughter of Johann Hollinski, merchant in Znojmo and Therese, born Setko from Znojmo. In this baptism certificate, her birthday is given on August 14, 1896

In 1932 Heinrich is named in the birth certificate of son Wilhelm Brennecke as a workshop owner for typewriters in Schleswig Ostrau No. 1314. Heinrich Brennecke died on September 6, 1969 in Schorndorf, Germany and was buried at the local cemetery.

They were the parents of

Wilhelm Brennecke born June 19, 1929 in Schleswig Ostrau No. 41

Gertraud Brennecke Born December 13, 1937 in Bruenn, Czech Republic died 1.071998 in Schondorf, Baden Wuertenberg, FRG

married to Horst Wahl born 1.4.1938 in Winterbach died in 1998 in Schondorf, Baden Wuertenberg, Germany

they were the parents of

Michael Wahl born February 18, 1966 in Schondorf, Baden Wuertenberg, Germany

Monika Wahl Born July 13, 1978 in Schondorf, Baden Wuertenberg, Germany

Andrea Wahl married Leon Born November 13, 1964 in Schondorf, Baden Wuertenberg, Germany

married to Armando Jose Leon Born January 27, 1967 in Carmaguey, Cuba

they are the parents of

Marco Leon Born January 31, 1996 in Schondorf, Baden Wuertenberg, Germany

MARGARETE BRENNECKE Born on February 17th, 1896 in Jesenice. It is called Marketa Terezie Konstancie in the information of the Moravian National Archives. Married to Karl Nather, the marriage was divorced at his instigation in 1925.

Margarete died in 1988 at the age of 92 after a long illness and several stays in nursing homes, absent-minded, in Schorndorf. Margarete and Karl Nather were the parents of

Inge Nather, married Wozilka born 19.021929 in Znaim, Moravia, Austria died 02.05.2015 in Wallhausen, Schwäbisch-Hall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

married to Karl Wozilka who died 31 May 2008 in Wallhausen, Schwäbisch-Hall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

they are the parents of

Jenny Wozilka Dr. phil

Elmar Wozilka married to Gabriele they have two daughters Kati and Lea

EMIGRATION

Emigrants were primarily employed persons, especially servants and maids, but also often craftsmen, not infrequently tailors and shoemakers, who were unable to make ends meet due to the onset of industrialization in Germany and who hoped for greater professional opportunities in the USA. It can be assumed that they mainly settled there in the cities. The compulsion to occupational mobility meant that their traces were lost quite quickly.

Those who emigrated were in the prime of their life in terms of age. Statistics do not always provide information about the occupations of emigrants. Since most other than the necessary travel allowance did not have any other assets with it, as the file notes, we can presume that these are day laborers, servants and maids. Those who took a little extra start-up capital were mostly craftsmen, especially tailors, but also carpenters, carpenters, potters, weavers, shoemakers, white tanners, dyers. The mechanization of some of these professions and the increasing competition from neighboring cities may have accelerated the emigration of these people. Also interesting is a marginal note by a bailiff in a report about the years 1843-46. It says: "Among the families are three siblings, one widow and one illegitimate mother with their children." This brings us to the motives for emigration. A similar wording is repeated year after year in the official files: "The reason for the emigration is the hope of everyone for better progress." - it reads e.g. in a report from 1852.

Emigration from the rural communities was somewhat different from that of the city. Because the situation of the population of these regions was shaped much more by agriculture and its problems and general conditions than that of the inhabitants of the city.

Emigration from the city took place especially in the 1840s. During this time, however, significantly fewer migrated from the rural environment. This could hardly have been due to the external conditions on site, because the opportunities for professional development in the countryside were and remained very limited in the 19th century. Only the eldest son of a farmer who could take over his father's farm had a real chance. It was not allowed to be shared; this was intended to put a stop to the parceling out of the country as practised in southern Germany. This worked - but at the expense of all children born later. For them there was the possibility of settling down as a craftsman, hiring himself out as a servant or maid with strangers on another farm, settling in one of the neighboring moor colonies or - not necessarily better - accepting a heuerling position on the farm of his own older brother . The farm and the associated modest land area provided only a poor livelihood, and the Heuerlings family also had to do manual and tensioning work for the farmer. A country like the USA, in which free, relatively cheap land purchase was possible, had to appear like paradise. In the 1940s and 1950s, however, negative reports of an economic crisis in America deterred those wishing to emigrate. The horror reports about the civil war in 1861-65 did the rest. After that, however, the phase of domestic political calming and the opening up of new states in the Midwest and West will result in an even more massive emigration from rural areas. Whole family associations sell their property and emigrate to the USA in groups via Bremen and Bremerhaven. They often stay together there too. They move together in treks from the east coast further inland, buy land there and, especially in the state of Nebraska, jointly found villages that have to be imagined as miniature editions of their German hometowns. They take their Low German language with them, their North German cuisine, their songs and customs, their worship regulations, and they pass all of this on to their sons and daughters, who marry among themselves and have children in turn.

There were, however, also other motives to leave the homeland.

THE BRNO DEATH MARCH

Gerti Pokorny-Striz

After we had spent the whole night at the church square (sic. Brno) and many had their valuables taken away, the train was set up into the unknown. Gradually it leaked out that it should go to the Austrian border. I don't know anything about a tour. It consisted more of an escort of young men who were armed and kept shouting and shooting their guns into the air. I was accompanied by my 62-year-old mother, the 2½-year-old son in the stroller. After a few kilometers you could see old people sitting on the side of the road who were resting or unable to continue. Often a ladder wagon broke and pieces of luggage that became too heavy ended up in the ditch.

Before we reached Pohrlitz, another thunderstorm started. We arrived exhausted and soaked. After some searching we found quarters for the night. The next day, especially vigorous people moved on to the border. Many thought that the situation would calm down soon and that a return to the city would be possible.

We stayed a few more days and lived in a huge wooden barrack. We only got a thin water soup with some vegetables, potatoes and thin black coffee. Romanian soldiers who camped on the edge of the camp sometimes gave bread, sugar and margarine for a valuable item. There was often fear at night when Russian soldiers took out women and girls. As a result of catastrophic hygienic conditions, dysentery and typhoid diseases occurred.

After a few days, Pohritzer farmers drove up in their wagons, invited us to take us to the border. My mother had cut her shin on a dirty wooden board in Pohrlitz. The wound caused more and more complaints.

On weekdays I usually went to the far-off fields and vineyards with the farmer's wife. Once I was attacked by a Russian who came armed with a submachine gun. What happened to me made hundreds of other women suffer. The displacement of the displaced almost never ended. Every day our fellows pleaded for accommodation and food. The local pastor kept calling the residents for help. Many of our compatriots fell ill with typhoid and dysentery or died from exhaustion. Their bodies were put in paper bags and buried at the local cemetery.

After a lot of effort we reached Poysdorf (sic. in Austria near the Czech Border). After a long search we found accommodation there. A doctor took care of my mother very conscientiously, although he had only a few medications available after the Russians had looted everything. After several weeks, he told her that she had just passed an amputation of the leg. From the farmers who had taken us in, I earned the food for the three of us with field and housework. My mother did patchwork.

When most of the work in the fields was done at the end of August, we became more and more annoying to our “brothers”; and they were not squeamish in bullying us. When the trains ran again, we packed our belongings and went to Vienna, and further to St. Pölten, where my husband's relatives welcomed us very well, until the move to Germany in February 1946.

THE BRÜNN DEATH MARCH

Corpus Christi May 30, 1945 Wilhelm Brennecke

This information was passed on by Wilhelm Brennecke "Uncle Willi" from Schorndorf on August 16, 2005 to Hans Brennecke on the occasion of the first Family Reunionduring a visit to Andrea Leon in Winterbach.

The Journey of

Margarete and Eduard Striz and their daughter Gerda (married Pokorny)

Heinrich and Maria Brennecke and children son Wilhelm and daughter Gabriele (married Wahl)

Margarete Brennecke (married Nather) and her daughter Inge (married. Wozilka)

The march started from Kirchplatz and Gregor Mendelplatz in Brno

July 1st, 1945 Vienna 21st Gerasdorf

September 12th, 1945 Vienna Floridsdorf, Frömmelgasse 40 - 42

January 22nd, 1946 Departure from Südbahnhof to Melk

January 25th, 1946 Departure to Schalding for delousing

January 29th, 1946 Arrival in Augsburg

February 5th, 1946 Mohnheim Bayr. Swabia

February 9th, 1946 Arrival in Flotzheim Swabia

The casulities caused from the hardships and beatings along the road were enormuos.

The dead were buried were they fell:

In CSR (Czechia)

Pohrlitz, in a mass grave 800 people

In Austria

Drasenhofen 157

Steinebrunn 19

Poysdorf 123

Wetzelsdorf 12

Wilfersdorf 32

Mistelbach 106

Pyrawarth 11

Wolkersdorf 27

Stammersdorf 70

A total of 1,357 people perished.

MEMORIES OF INGE AND KARL WOZILKA

Inge Wozilka Nather, the daughter of Margarete Brennecke, and her husband Karl Borromäus Wozilka, also born in Znojmo, have summarized many of their moving experiences in the Lower Austrian diary.

It is their personal experiences, impressions and fates that help us to understand the cruelty and privation of that time, which ultimately led to the Death March of the German population, who had lived in South Moravia for many generations.

But not only bad memories can be found in these diaries, in which Inge Wozilka knows how to bring close to us the life in the family home in Znojmo. Höckstrasse 12

Decades later when we were able to visit this, "our" house in Znoimo and the castle and village of Jaispitz / Jevisovice again, many of the stories became magically alive.

LOWER AUSTRIAN DIARY

Ingeborg Wozilka

THE HOUSE IN HÖCKSTRASSE

The house in Höckstrasse No. 12 in Znojmo was built at a time when the grandparents Brennecke were still employed in Jaispitz. Contrary to my childhood information, it was not Wilhelm Christian Brennecke who was the builder, but the maternal great-grandparents, Florian and Thersia Wuck, who were already based in Jaispitz, before Wilhelm Christian Brennecke showed up here. Documents (including the baptismal certificate) state that Wilhelm Christian Brennecke married the Wuck's daughter, who was 20 years younger than him. When she was born, Wilhelm Christian Brennecke had been working in Jaispitz for some time. He was, as can be seen from my mother's baptismal certificate, Schloss-Beschliesser, which is a title for an administrative position of a castle, a castellan . I know from my mother that Wilhelm Christian Brennecke came from Hanover. Peine was mentioned many times and also Schmedenstedt5. Research by Hans Brennecke, Vienna, grandson of Max Brennecke, a brother of my mother, has confirmed this. What may have prompted Wilhelm Christian Brennecke to establish himself in Jaispitz remains unknown. Hans assumes that it was the wars in 1866. (Prussian deserter?)

The house was built in Art Nouveau style. Flower ornaments carved from stone were attached to the window facades. Where the roof was located above the second floor, a wall rose with a turret at each end, in between the year in which it was built in 1902. It is therefore not necessary to search in documents for the year of construction. Two steps led to the front door in the middle of the house. A kind of foyer opened after the door, a spacious staircase, the stairs always limed white. The caretaker, the Wawrinka, had to fetch kaolin clay at the freight yard at thleast once a week. To do this, she used a small handcart. Sometimes I went with her. She made this slurry of chalk into a pulp and used it to cover the steps. There was a landing behind the front door, new steps followed and another landing and another door across the width of this foyer.

Only behind was the access to the apartments on the mezzanine floor, one on the right and one on the left. The floors were tiled, looking like mosaic, small stones in blue, white and yellow, set in regular patterns. Two stairs, perhaps thirteen steps, led to the first floor. High windows let in a lot of light from the garden. They were double-glazed, simply glazed on the outside, provided with the most beautiful bull's-eye panes on the inside, colorful discs the size of beer coasters lined with lead bands. They let the whitewashed steps light up in wonderful colors. Nowhere have I seen anything like it in a stairwell.

The second floor was as high as the third floor elsewhere. The garden that joined the house was not very big, but overgrown in my time. In the far corner there was a kennel, quite rusty and of no use. The garden was enclosed by a wall, like all these inner gardens, which lay in the area that was enclosed by four rows of houses. Ivy overgrown the back wall, particularly preferred by blackbirds.

The caretaker's apartment was in the basement of the house. It was always dark. The windows, although also facing the street, were at the level of the sidewalk and you could only see the feet of passers-by. Old Wawrinka didn't spend much time in her two-room apartment. In the summer she sat on the stairs of the hall door that opened to the garden, blinking in the sun. In winter she often came to our kitchen, called me "Butzinko" and found everything I was doing right. When my mother went out, Wawrinka stayed with me until I fell asleep.

The married couple Wuck is said to have owned a house in Vienna and to have been wealthy. From Hans, the great grandson of Wilhelm Christian Brennecke, you learn that Florian Wuck in the k.u.k. Hofkanzlei Wien was employed as a messenger (?). According to my mother, their property is said to have been in Annagasse in Vienna.

The Wuck couple were close friends with the forester Ritschl and wife in Jaispitz, whose descendants lived in Vienna and were in correspondence with my mother for a long time (until after 1945). According to Hans' research at the property office in Znojmo, the daughter of the couple Wuck, Marie, known as Mizl, was apparently the only child, heiress and owner of the house on Höckstrasse. After her relatively early death, she was about 43 years old and previously paralyzed for 15 years, her children became heirs under a notarial contract. Her husband Wilhelm Christian Brennecke had “Niessrecht” (Servitude) on the house. The names of the children are listed in the contract: Wilhelmine, Max, Heinrich and Margarete. The latter two were still minors when their mother died and were represented by the husband of their older sister Wilhelmine. That was Prof. Eduard Striz, grandfather of the Pokorny children.

After the six-family house was built, the Brennecke family moved into one of the apartments. The Wuck couple also lived in Znojmo, but in a rented accommodation (?) at Marienplatz 2. Both people died in Znojmo and were buried there, too. The large, man-sized tombstones made of black marble still existed in 1945 and were cared for by my mother until we were expelled.

The style of the family grave indicated a good fortune. During the First World War, wealthy people from the state, the Habsburg monarchy, had to arranged for a war loan. This meant that the house, which was apparently debt-free at the time, was mortgaged in favor of the state. These promissory notes, like notes from the inflation money from the 20s, were in my possession for a long time (until we were expelled). This debt was gradually paid off in installments from the house's rental income. The last installment was repaid in 1942.

With the overthrow in 1918, when the dissolution of the monarchy created the 1st Czech Republic, to which the city of Znojmo belonged, Wilhelm Christian Brennecke lost his pension claim to the Austrian state and, understandably, did not receive a pension from the "new" Czech state. It would have been possible if he had emigrated to Austria. He could have kept Austrian citizenship and consequently receive a pension. However, he had no relatives or possessions there. He couldn't dispose of the house on Höckstrasse. So it seemed appropriate for him to stay in Znojmo as a Czech citizen and to continue to exercise the “right of usufruct” on the house. In this way he was at least guaranteed a modest living. But he had also lost Austrian citizenship, like everyone who did not emigrate in 1918, and had become a Czech citizen. This probably also included Max Brennecke, son of Wilhelm Christian Brennecke, who, according to research by Hans Brennecke, only acquired Austrian citizenship in 1947. Wilhelm Christian Brennecke died in 1932 at the age of 82 in Brno in his daughter Wilhelmine's home and was buried in Znojmo in the grave of the Wuck couple and his wife Maria.

In 1938, when the young Czech state was occupied by the Germans of the Third Reich, there were suddenly different nationalities in the population: the Czechs, lived in the so-called protectorate like in a ghetto within a strictly guarded border, furthermore, the later so-called Sudeten Germans in the north on the Silesian border and the South Moravians, citizens of the Habsburg Empire since its inception. The government of the Third Reich declared all German speaking people to be "Reichsdeutsche" Reich Germans without further ado, a measure with fatal consequences.

This confusion of nationalities created problems that led to misunderstandings many years later. This also suggests why Max Brennecke was only granted Austrian citizenship in 1947. It also nourishes understanding of the many mixed political marriages that had occurred when these problems did not exist. The statesmen who signed the Yalta Agreement apparently had no idea of the geographical and ethnological conditions of these border countries and the former borders of the former Habsburg-Hungarian monarchy after the end of the First World War. In 1918, the borders, especially as far as the South Moravian area was concerned, were simply occupied at the will and discretion of the country's councilors, which was tacitly accepted by the government in Vienna in order to avoid a renewed flare-up of the war activities. I have written documentation about this in my possession. It is known to exchange a strip of fertile farmland that the Austrians left to the Czechs for 25 wagons of coal. The impact of this trade was not foreseeable at the time.

After the end of the Second World War, the "Ring" populated by Germans around the Czech territory of the 2nd Czech Republic was "incorporated" as it was called at the time, and the Germans were expelled without further ado because they had meanwhile mutated from Habsburg to Reich German residents without their own doing. Over the years, the vacant houses of the Germans were filled with people from Eastern countries, e.g. Romania, Bulgaria, who had been resettled.

The different handling of citizenships in the different occupation zones of post-war Austria was difficult and difficult for the uninitiated to understand. All "Germans" who were in Russian-occupied zones in Austria had to leave the country, while those Germans who were in American or English-occupied zones or had Austrian relatives there were allowed to stay in Austria. Vienna was divided into four zones: Russian, American, English, French. It was an unspeakable mess.

Families were torn apart again. Traveling on your own is almost impossible because there was no regular train connection, no private vehicles, no food to buy, no accommodation on the go. There was no newspaper. Only those who had been spared bombs or other war effects had a radio, there were few. Black market flourished. Human trafficking too. The film “The Third Man” with Orson Wells best illustrates the time in Vienna at that time.

At that time Max Brennecke had certainly lived in Vienna, probably in the American zone, otherwise he would have been expelled from the country as a non-Austrian. Because, as is known, he was only granted Austrian citizenship in 1947. Since the siblings Wilhemine, Heinrich and Margarete Brennecke had no contact with Max during the war years 1939 - 1945, and one did not know where he was, it would have been unreasonable to look for him with the request that a few havenots and relatives expelled from their country would find and appeal to him. In addition, the Znojmo family did not know where the Brno relatives were and whether they had survived the Russian invasion and expulsion. The only one was Herbert Pokorny, who, because he was stationed in Znojmo, had been in contact with us until the Znojmo train station was bombed and Herbert took "his" transport of wounded soldiers straight to meet the Russians and afive-year Russian captivity.

The family members only reunited in Germany through correspondence with friends, e.g. also with Ritschl's in Vienna, and through the tracing service of the Red Cross. Herbert, the son-in-law of Wilhelmine and Eduard Striz, was only released from Russian captivity in 1950. Almost a miracle is the fact that the family has lost not one member in these events.

The house in Höckstrasse has not been privately owned since then, but is managed by the city of Znojmo. (As we learned during our visit to the house, the apartments are now privately owned again).

In his research at the Znojmo Real Estate Office, Hans Brennecke found out that the Brennecke family also owned real estate in the Wienerstrasse. I knew nothing of this. Unfortunately, after the expulsion of family members, there was no more talk about former ownership. (Also according to the Benes Decree, none of the former possessions had to be restituted).

In April 1945 the house was hit by a Russian bomb. The stairwell was torn apart, the supporting masonry remained. But the apartments were open to looting.

UNDER THE APRICOT TREE

The March days are so spring-like, one can sit outside in the garden. A wooden table, a wooden bench with a backrest, painted dark green in grandfather's day, exposed to the weather anyway, you can see it, standing under the old, strange, gnarled, crippled apricot tree. I take my exercise books and turn to the parables and hyperbolas, geometric figures that I want to draw again. The new young math teacher from Vienna can explain everything perfectly, suddenly math seems logically clear, liberating. She is very different from the bony, impatient Ringelhahn who was brought back from his pension and which only addressed us with "stupid geese". For him, you were stupid in advance. He was so clever that he couldn't explain anything because it was so natural for him. But the new teacher is great. Hopefully she stays for a while. My mother's voice pulls me out of my speculations "Come in, Proksch Herbert is here and wants to say goodbye to you!" I walk through the garden across the courtyard into the house. The hallway is cool, the stairs are made bright white with chalk sludge, the sun falls through the colored glas discs of the windows in each staircase and paints differently colored stains on the bright surfaces. The staircase and the landing are covered with tiles, which are divided and look like mosaic stones, blue, yellow and white in patterns. It is so artistic, no other house looks like it. I only learned that it was Art Nouveau much later.

So here is Herbert Proksch and I am surprised because we had hardly spoken to each other before. The "Reli" (religious education) classes have been moved to the afternoon and take place in the rectory. For boys and girls at the same time. It was unusual. Since then there has been a high school for girls, a high school for boys, strictly separated according to gender. One saw eachother in the street, knew each other through ones parents, but avoided each other casting only shy glances.

In Reli we were only six or eight students. It was the Imgold Erwin, Marquard Roth with his sister three years older, the pastor's children, said Proksch Herbert, one whose name I have forgotten and I. We sang songs and heard Bible texts. It was striking that the pastor became increasingly sad. As sad as Herbert Proksch, who was standing in front of me in the high corridor flooded with bright light. "I have to go to Napola, to a camp," he said. I only understood that it was something military and apparently related to the war. Napola was a national political institution, an elite education. Some had imagined that they belonged there. “The Reli lessons no longer take place. We won't see each other anymore. ”His seriousness was new, his forecast too, at least for me. I had never heard news. The people's receiver occasionally brought special reports about the shooting down of enemy planes and the sinking of mostly English warships from so many gross register tons, before and after fanfares from Richard Wagner's compositions sounded imposing, who doubted a victory there? Ilse Werner whistled cheerfully, longingly sang Rudi Schurike “Heimat deine Sterne”, Zarah Leander predicted “Es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehn - A miracle will happen” or the cheeky sound from the film “The White Dream”: “I am the Prater Mizzi , the darling of all gentlemen .... ", or" Mamachi give me a horse ... "Lale Andersen exceptionally languishes very internationally Lili Marlen " Under the Lantern, in front of the big gate ". In German lessons with Mr. Winkler we read: The Hermannschlacht, Antigone, and we knew who Oedipus was. Speaking, auditioning, English, French, Latin ... but we didn't know the reality. Ms. Slavik - music teacher - sang to us and accompanied herself on the piano: "Herr Heinrich sass am Vogelherd", "Archibald Douglas", "Aquarius (Der Nöck)", Balladen von Löwe.

Our silent conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud whistle, high tones rang out in the air, engine noise from low-flying aircraft startled us. Suddenly a deafening bang, window panes clinked. We hurried to the front of the house, everything was fine here. "It was a bomb attack without an alarm," said Herbert Proksch, his face was white. But we heard nothing more, no planes, no bombings. We went back into the yard and into the garden. There was no longer a table, no bench, no apricot tree, no exercise books, just a deep crater hole. At this point. It had all happened so quickly and unpredictably and therefore so unreally. My mother was speechless and Herbert left. It gradually dawned on me that he had saved my life. If I hadn't gone into the house at this very moment, I would either be in the crater hole or somewhere in the air because there were no remains or splinters from either the bench, the table or the tree. The five chickens, which had a small spout in the back of the garden, stuck to the garden wall like tufts of an Indian game.

I just knew we needed an air-raid shelter now, as has always been recommended, and we probably won't have much schooling anymore. People came in to look horrified at the crater hole. They claimed that they were Russian little bombs, a stray single pilot. Even if the window panes were broken, you could still lock the apartment door. We could still sleep in the apartment.

A day or two later it was said "there is a fire in Schwaighofer Hof!" During the night, bombs had fallen there too. My mother and I had such a blessed sleep, we hadn't heard anything. The Schwaighofer Hof was a residential area on Wiener Strasse. A bit away from us, of course. And again it was just a single bombing without warning. In the city, people were running around like a startled ants in a broken anthill. One asked the other, "What should we do?" Some knew. They set off with luggage that they could carry. On foot, with a trolley, with a fully packed pram, with the child on the back, others by the hand, they wanted to go to the "Americans" in a manner that was important, in no way did they want to experience the Russian invasion and the Russians were already very close. You could already hear the gunfire north of Prager Strasse. But there were no cars. Apparently the railroad was still going, sometime, somewhere. Everyone wanted to go to Austria. Everyone remembered any relatives he had there, one spoke of Graz and Linz as if one could be protected and happy there. My mother said, "We haven't done anything to anyone, so nobody will harm us. We have our house here, we stay here. "

It was April now. We had met again in school to find out that the school would remain closed "until further notice". The teachers had tearful eyes, the first-grader girls sang carefree "Russla if you were mine" and turned in a circle. Or they sang "Heissa Kathreinerle". Many had not appeared. The city was no longer bustling. I met Traudl at Marienplatz. "We're going to my aunt's in Laa," she said. From that moment on I haven't seen her in twenty years. My mother was only in bed. Sometimes the neighbor from the house across the street was there. So also that evening of April 20th

BOMB NIGHT

Ms. Schwarzendorfer had been with us and was about to say goodbye. We stood in front of the apartment door, which was still closed. There was a tremendous roar, I was amazed to see how the heavy double-walled oak door, as if by magic, slowly moved a few centimeters into the apartment, steadily lifted off its hinges and pushed on the buckle - everything happened in slow motion. Then it fell flat into the apartment. We just had time to jump aside, but now a thick cloud of dust was pushing through the open entrance, in which one could not breathe. Quickly we rush into the bedrooms and open the windows and there against the night sky see an aircraft squadron flying over the houses . The bombs fell out of the planes like black birds in a dive. They started with a sington that got higher the closer they came until they hit with a thunder. But the next one was already on the way with loud whistles and a raging impact. It took 20 minutes and then there was silence. Silence. Nothing burned in the house, but the staircase was gone. We had a mountain of rubble on the ground floor. The cloud of dust drifted upward, like through a large chimney. You could see the sky through the hole in the roof.

Ms. Neberle lived on the second floor with her maid and a dog. They couldn't come down anymore. German soldiers were on the spot right away, I don't know who notified or brought them. The Schwarzendorfer Mizzi and I fetched sticks from the courtyard, passed them on to the soldiers from hand to hand, and they quickly built a ladder through the stairwell. From floor to floor up to the 2nd floor and took the two women with a dog and took them to the basement.

In the afternoon, as if anticipating things, I converted the large laundry room into a lounge, pushed the wooden vats and troughs that stood around to one side, turned them over and turned them into seats, moved chairs out of the apartment here, and brought blankets.

The residents now gathered here, all very silent. Only my mother cried loudly. "Where's my child?" She kept shouting, while I was standing next to her. But she didn't want to see me. After all, everything revolved around her. Herbert , who had come to us from the barracks, gave her something to drink and residents of the house spoke well to her. Around 10 a.m. the planes with the bombs came again. Since the chairs were occupied, we sat down; Herbert and I, on a long wash trough that was upside down and comfortable to sit on like a bench. You could hear the planes thundering, there were squadrons of them and you could hear the bombs whistling and hitting. First from afar and then closer and then again further away. Every time they got closer, we waited to be hit for the third time. Herbert put his arm around my shoulder and said: "It is unlikely that a house will be hit several times". And I stuck to that sentence. When the planes had left, there was a 20 minute break. Then they flew again and so it went all night. The ghosts stopped at dawn. When we finally crawled out, we saw only rubble piles up the street. The front of many houses was missing and you could look inside like in a doll's house, next door and across the street. We tried to stay in the apartment even though there was no electricity and the water supply was also stopped. We stayed in the unlocked apartment for two or three nights, sleeping in our beds as usual. Herbert came in the evening to stay the night with us. During the day he worked as a medic - before he was called up to study medicine - in the hospital in the Ottokarburg next to our high school. He was our protector. It was certainly thanks to him that a group of soldiers had come to install the wooden ladder in the stairwell and to save the people from the second floor.

It was the end of April. By now the city was pretty much destroyed, hardly anyone to be seen. Then Herbert surprised us with the news that he had been ordered to leave Znojmo on a special train with the wounded from his hospital, with an uncertain destination. After two days with the hospital train at the train station, he came back again. The station had been bombed. Only a few wagons survived from the train, which was overcrowded with wounded soldiers. Herbert could have stayed with us now, but before his conscience he might not have been responsible for leaving the rest of the wounded helpless and alone to their fate. There was chaos. Nevertheless, the train drove to Schönwald in order to avoid another hail of bombs, which was obviously aimed at the station. So they drove north to meet the Russians. Because, as was later learned, crossing the railway bridge on the Vienna line was too risky due to the threat of blasting. Soon afterwards the small wounded transport was received by the Russians. Herbert did not come back from Russian "captivity" until five years later, - not home - because drama had also taken place there in the meantime.

So Herbert was gone, the house on Höckstrasse was empty. Our apartment unprotected offered access for everyone. The Russian bombers flew daily. Everything was uncertain, only one thing was certain: this war was lost. There was no "Endsieg" the final victory, as promised just a few weeks before. The Russians came. In the underground passages of the city one could at least be safe from the bombs, someone recommended. With our small "air raid baggage" we set off into the unknown tube system. The entrances, hidden since then, were marked. The catacombs that had not been used for centuries were filled with life. Every now and then there was a candle or a kerosene lamp. Skillful people made the simplest bed frames out of raw planks, but they were all already occupied. The vaults were damp, the rock was sweating, and there were pools of water on the floor. Anyone who got hold of a box to sit on was happy. In the dark, in the damp cold, hungry, frightened, one waited. On what? On Russians who were told the most gruesome things.

FIRST LIVE BROADCAST

The entrance to the monastery cellar led through the garden. This stretched narrow and elongated between the belts of the southern city wall. The inner wall ring bounded the very small, ancient houses of the old town settlement, the outer wall ring encircled the entire city, left four gates open, one in each direction, enclosed the large market places, the noble town houses, the coin, several churches and monasteries Steep slope of the river valley and met again in the northern direction of the valley. On the southern slope with a view of the Vienna Basin was the monastery with a garden, always facing the sun. Here a big mouth yawned in the masonry of the buildings, always open, in whose dark gorge steep stone steps carved into the rock led down. All sorts of corridors from different directions met below. Those who knew their way around could cross the city on underground paths. It was not advisable for the uninitiated to use these paths, which in places were not accessible and often misleading.

So these were our bunkers, in which we sought protection from the aerial bombs. Because if an exit was spilled, you could find numerous other exits and entrances. It was only much later that we found out that these passages had never been renovated for centuries and were therefore in danger of collapsing. Ignorance made us feel safe.

If the bomb planes set course for the city again, everything that went down the stairs fell. If the all-clear was given or it could be assumed that the squadron had moved away, everyone naturally wanted to be out in the fresh air and you climbed the stairs, more badly than right.

There was the young pretty I.S .. She lived with her mother and little son in the neighboring house of a school friend. She was very blonde. Barely over twenty years. In good shape despite the previous war years. Her rump was exhilaratingly sweeping and she knew how to swing it back and forth with every step, like a ship in high seas. But it swayed softly and the rocking movement gave a hint of the gentle rhythm of a cradle in which the baby blissfully sleeps towards life. S. knew about her charms and deliberately used them. As a schoolgirl, she had made a bet that she would be able to marry her teacher. She had won the bet. Then the son came and the man was drafted.

Once again the bomb planes were turned off. The people in the belly of the earth crowded to the stairs. I waited in one of the alcoves until the crowds had subsided. And then she came, went behind her mother, who was carrying the son. There was a traffic jam at the bright hole at the top of the garden entrance. The ones at the bottom of the stairs couldn't wait to get up. And in the thrust I discovered a figure in a dark robe behind the rocking Noah's ark. His hands were at shoulder height, his fingers spread, and he tried to hold and slide the fleshy mountains wagging in front of his face as if they could fall down. And he pushed violently, although nobody was behind him anymore. His open hands slid over the curves as if they were checking the authenticity. His zeal was great. He was not blocked. I could not believe my eyes. I had never seen anything like it. The films at that time did not show such scenes. At home we ran an abandoned household. My imagination was naive. I was amazed. To date, the monks had a halo for me. Then something of this aura crumbled off and fell back into the dark corridors.

It was the first live broadcast I had seen.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

The corridors, which were branched under the entire city, led to the Capuchin monastery. From there you could reach my father's apartment through the garden. It had been broken open, furniture smashed, beds cut, suitcases cut and ransacked, dishes broken and partly robbed. So don't stay either. My father appeared. "They'll get me," he said with fearful eyes, "and they'll kill me. I have to go". And then he took me aside: he put his hands on my shoulders and said, “it's all over anyway. I know an underground passage under our garden. Nobody can find us there. Come there with me I make us a pleasant death. But I didn't want to die yet. Certainly not like that. I got rid of myself and ran away through the garden into the neighboring Capuchin monastery. The Capuchin monks there had already hidden several women and children with them. They assigned empty cells to them. Everyone was convinced that it was a protected space, a consecrated place. It was no longer valid that women were not allowed in the monastery. It was an extraordinary time when something extraordinary could happen. No soldiers would come in here, even among Russians there were pious people who respected churches and monasteries. All streets of the city could be reached via the underground passageways. Russians would not go into this maze.

So calmed down, I made a guest appearance in a cell and no longer in the wet vaults. But only a few days. The monks were friendly, they spoke German. One of the monks, who seemed more closed than his brothers, came up to me in the hall and handed me a book. It was called "pre-summer" by Karl Benno von Mechov. How did he get there? I may have thanked you. Otherwise we haven't exchanged a word. From then on I only read and was in another world.

Perhaps a week had passed when Father Quardian excited everyone. The Russians are Coming. Someone hung a white sheet from the bell tower. Should mean "We don't fight!" Or "Spare us, here is a consecrated floor!"

And then the tanks rattled down the cobblestones of the streets, covered wagons squeaked, horses whinnied, soldiers shouted incomprehensible words. Every now and then a shot was fired. We had strict instructions to keep everyone in their cell, lock them from the inside, and keep quiet. Several times a day they pounded on the monastery gate. Sometimes after long persuasive speeches, she was able to reject Father Quardian. Sometimes barrels of wine from the cellar were heaved up the steep rocky stairs and the Russians trolled happily with them. There was nothing to eat. Although I assume the monastery had a well-stocked pantry behind the kitchen. The supplies would have been used up quickly if everyone had used them. I don't know how the others managed. Anyway, there was a suitcase full of sugar cubes under Mitzi's bed, I knew that. Despite all the warnings, I left my cell and slipped to her. Most of the time she was absent and I quickly got a handful of the coveted sweetness, for a while the hunger was satisfied. My mother also stayed in one or the other cell. I had my book and was enraptured with it. At some point everything would be all right, the order would be the same, the house would be straightened, the school would go on, the war was over, there would be something to eat. Maybe we could move into the apartment on the first floor, and I would furnish my rooms one way or another.

Father Quardian burst into these daydreams with the news that the German monks had to leave the monastery. You would have an offer to come to a monastery in South Tyrol. They were like a flock of startled pigeons. There were no vehicles, no horses, only wild Russians with dirty uniforms outside our house, small boys with slit eyes, wide faces and flat noses. It was still the invasion force, which, I explained later, had the right to loot. They were Mongols. Three days, there were several unpunished lootings after taking a city, that was the wages of the war.

It was surely the worst news for the peace-loving monks. How should they have made their way to South Tyrol? How did you manage to survive the "Third Reich" in this idyll without being disturbed? What kind of people were they? What did she expect? But it was said that the Czech monks were already waiting to move in, and so they gradually lost themselves, one by one, who knows where.

At the time, we had no idea that this measure was the beginning of the expulsion. It was a practical solution from the city administration, because the people hidden in the monastery now had to move out too. Suddenly, jeeps were driving through the city, men in partisan uniforms were waving a Czech flag. The republic was proclaimed. The second Czech Republic.

Once I dared to sneak into Höckstrasse. The apartment was largely robbed. Then I heard shrill whistles and whips pounding on the street. a single partisan came up to the house. Otherwise the street was empty. I fled to the basement and hid behind the huge lack of laundry. Head-sized stones filled the car, stacked like a tower. I heard the man roaming our apartment up there and climbing the makeshift wooden stairs to the upper floors. Apparently he hadn't found what he was looking for. I recognized him when I went out. His parents had a pharmacy on Wienerstrasse. They were Czechs. To protect themselves, many Czechs dressed in partisan uniforms. So you could not differentiate them from the "real ones" who had been brought to the extinct city from any Balkan countries in which the German military had made themselves unpopular. They were enemies, rigorous, they were no exception. They did not meet well-known Germans, whom they would have been afraid of treating them badly.

But this one was one I knew. When I cycled into the piano lesson, I had to go down Wienerstrasse. Then he saw me driving past, grabbed his bike and drove along with him. He was my age. We never spoke to each other. He usually had an adjutant with him, a small, much younger guy. One day he came up to me in the school playground and handed me a tulip. He says "Greetings from Mirek!" - "Where did you get the tulip from?" I asked. And he answered faithfully, "From the discounts on Granitzweg." That was our commonality. And now he was browsing our house as a partisan, wielding a whip. I sneaked back to the monastery. I went to church. I was alone there. I wanted to pray. But the head was blocked. The heart too.

Suddenly the church door was opened. The big heavy door, actually a portal, did not open so easily. I still had time to hide in a confessional. It was one of those that looked like old German chests of drawers, dark, ornate, full of secrets. Tripartite. A dark red curtain hung in the middle. I crawled in there. The old wood creaked. I dared not move. A few Russians rumbled down the aisle. "Just don't be discovered". To make matters worse, the Padres would also condemn me for leaving the house without permission. I made myself as small as I could. A scraped thin pillow lay on the seat. There was a disgusting scent. I felt sick, with difficulty I suppressed a sneeze. The Russians seemed artful, as far as the poor Capuchin church could offer. It was an infinitely long time before they left. They didn't fight, they didn't take anything with them. With stiff knees I climbed out of the closet, which I would never have climbed into voluntarily.

From previous excursions driven by curiosity and a thirst for discovery, I knew a passage that led from the monastery to the church and had the exit behind the altar. That was the way of the monks when they went to their devotions at night. This enabled them to avoid crossing the street. I used the way now, back to my cell.

THE EVICTION

In the Third Reich, the “special reports” had not only been heard on the radio, at that time they were the small “Volksempfänger” radio sets, “for the people”, small and cheap, affordable for everyone, but those with the special should also be there Messages are reached that happened to be on the street and had no radio available at the moment. Everyone should learn about the military's achievements and the impending "final victory". To achieve this, loudspeakers have been installed all over the city, mostly at the light poles of public places, large crossroads, in front of the cinemas or sports fields, just where several people have been suspected. You were always up to date.

Now these messages were stopped from May 8th. Even the last faithful had to know what had struck. Who could still believe in the final victory if the Russians moved around the city?

But suddenly the speakers started working again. Everyone listened to the strange voice from "above". Unbelievable what flooded the streets with a commanding voice, unmistakable, doubtful like the announcements a few days ago. "Attention" was heard in German "The population is being warned that by May 28th all Germans must leave the country, otherwise they will face prison terms." Was anyone making a joke? How should that work? Where to go What happened to the property? Why should you be locked up? Who had gotten into debt? And the voice from above continued "all Germans, including women and children, including those who have no political function." The nonsense even strengthened my mother's opinion, because she said "We have our house here, our grandparents already lived here, we did no harm to anyone. We got on well with everyone, Czechs were our friends, we looked after and protected a group of Jews, even though it was forbidden. We cannot be meant. That certainly applies to the Germans who came to us from the "old empire" after 1939. "

The unrest remained. If you are German, you should wear a yellow armband. So it went on. We didn't have a home anyway. After we left the monastery, the family of Vera Danzerova granted us shelter. They had the smallest dark apartment in a back yard on Kalchergasse. Vera was a "compulsory year-old girl" in my father's household during the war. In time she had become a friend to me, just two years older than me. The Danzer family provided a bed for my mother and me. They must have helped themselves if necessary, because apart from their parents there was suddenly also their brother, whom I had never known before, and his friend. We only came to sleep, during the day we were knocking stones. I noticed one thing in the small Czech apartment: a map, a map of Europe, was attached to the side of the front door facing the inside of the apartment, and the front lines of the Russian Army were marked with colored pins. So you knew more than we did, went through my head. After all, my father was a captain in the German Air Force and he handled his knowledge of political matters very easily, if he was ever at home. My mother and I had been called to the district court. There we were told that we had to be at the factories on the station grounds at seven in the morning. There we met several women and girls, all German. We were instructed by a man to clear the mountains of rubble. How do you do that? Well, free the mortar residues from the usable, not quite splintered bricks and tap them to the extent that they could be used. The bricks cleaned in this way were piled up to form a wall. but the man left us again. Maybe he wanted to give us a chance to get away from it. But in our naivety we didn't understand that. Everyone standing around agreed that "everything was not meant to be cleaned up with the rubble so seriously" and we climbed into the house that was torn apart by bombs like ours in Höckstrasse.

The apartment door had broken out, clothes were lying on the stairs, children's things, a satchel, books, German books, booklets, German poetry albums, a poetry album, a nicely bound booklet and I read by child's hand "Znojmo this is a nice town, it has a lot of pretty girls, it also has a town hall tower, which is taller than a worm. ”Sure, these first literary effusions were kept secrets, now they lay in chaos on the floor, exposed to every dirty boot. I felt ashamed, felt like a sniffer, like an intruder into intimate spheres. Way to the kitchen. Since the women were already busy. Here were leftovers in bowls, plates, pots on the table, on the windowsill, even on chairs. Half-learned bottles, cutlery on the floor, the people who had obviously wanted to take a meal here had been taken by surprise. These manufacturers were wealthy people. A refrigerator belonged to the kitchen furniture. Back then it was a luxury. This one was filled with food. a sight hardly known. Butter, tins, milk in bottles, and in the pantry hung sticks of sausages, loaves of bread lay there, preserving jars with compote, we hadn't seen such wonderful things in a long time.

Practically as women are, everyone quickly agreed. You stuffed your mouth full as much as possible, and then the apron pockets. I didn't have an apron. My urge to research pulled me into the other rooms. There were no chandeliers here. These were chandeliers here in the dining room: as I knew them from the theater. Glass beads, glass candles, glass lozenges, glass drops, glass tears.

For another day we let ourselves knock stones. This proves what submissive thinking we were used to. Just obey a voice that you didn't know, that couldn't be assigned to anyone.

On the way to our “work”, small groups of people passed by again and again, packed with squiggles from pillows, with bags or sacks, and with frightened faces. "Didn't you hear it? The former RAD camp (Reich Labor Service) on Prager Strasse is now a prisoner of war camp. Several Germans are said to have been interned and beaten there. In any case, you hear screams when you walk past. "-" You have to come with me. Actually there is still war. "-" Or again ".

The Danzers cautiously made us understand that they could no longer accommodate us. The ratia is strict and also punishes the Czechs who protect Germans.

In the courtyard of the Höckstrasse house there has always been a small hand-cart. We used that to get our coal from the dealer. He hadn't brought any in for a long time. If you needed coal, you had to get it yourself and only got a limited amount. We equipped this cart with a backpack that Herbert had left behind, our air-raid luggage, a blanket, the book I had received from the monk, and a pleated skirt that I had found in the looted apartment. So we went, my mother and I, with the wagon and our poor dog, who also didn't know how it happened. When we passed the Thaya Bridge at Bruck Abbey, I looked back. This farewell look at the elevated city impressed me deeply.

Here is a letter I sent to Sigl Ewald many years later. It describes everything my mother and I had to experience on the border with Austria.

LETTER TO EWALD

Karl and Ingeborg Wozilka Upper Heath 11 74599 Wallhausen

28.09.1996

Dear Ewald,

We were very happy about your call and we would like to thank you again very much. Unfortunately, October is pretty crowded in terms of time, as there are the birthdays of brother-in-law, sister-in-law and our son, then mentioned class reunion by Karli, plus a hip visit with overnight stays in spring. - My liver is not so good and I am therefore tired very quickly, not even as fast as before. I don't know if I can make ends meet. Now I let everything come to me once and call you beforehand so that you know for sure whether we are coming or not.

I was surprised to hear from you about my father's captivity among the Czechs. At the class reunion of our girl class last year in Salzburg, Lehnert Hilde asked me about it. I wondered about it, since we were all children back in 1937. If we ever talked about it in our house, it was always a bit taboo, so you didn't like it, I don't know why. Maybe because there was something terrible about it. Because prison, political or not, always had something disreputable.

In the year of deportation, my father had left long before us; he had suddenly disappeared without saying goodbye or asking about our whereabouts. Before that, he had advised us to go to the Winninger family in Neuhäusl and wait for the end of the war there. My mother and I had also started to go there, but when we arrived there was a feeling of optimism in the mill itself. It had been feared that the Frainer weir would be blown up. In this case, all mills and oerte (sic) in the Thayatal to Bruck Abbey would have been under flood. So we went back to Znojmo the same day and survived the end of the war and the Russian invasion in the cellars, which, as you know, spanned extensive areas from Füttergasse to Unteren Platz to the Capuchin monastery (and beyond). We couldn't go home to Höckstrasse because our house was hit by a Russian bomb, was very damaged and uninhabitable. A well-known Czech family initially took us in, although it was forbidden for them to host Germans under the threat of punishment. Our house or apartment was completely looted within a few days. Many people, including my mother and I, did not believe that the expulsion was final. We thought it was a "temporary post-war phenomenon" and didn't feel threatened, just out of a naive, clear conscience. It seemed natural to me that my father had escaped, after all he was an officer in the Air Force and could have been taken prisoner of war at the last minute. I know a few examples.

But when my mother and I no longer had a place to stay - the hiding place with the Czech family was narrow and not possible in the long run - we set off for Retz as stragglers. We pulled a small ladder cart with a blanket and a backpack on top of it, in which we had hurriedly stowed away our belongings, actually our so-called "air-raid luggage".

At the border, Czech soldiers studied our passport longer than with other people. Then someone came up to us and asked if I was the daughter of photographer Nather. They would look for him, and until he was found I would be held hostage. I tried to explain that my parents had been divorced for 15 years. After all, my mother had a hysterical fit and cried and cried. Somehow the soldiers seemed at a loss. One grabbed the backpack and poured the contents onto the street so that the things flew in all directions. That is a German military backpack, it must stay here. They also removed the blanket from the cart. Then someone called “Run!” In Czech and we hurried to get away. My mother was still trying to pick up some of the things on the street and put them in her apron, which held them together at the ends like a bag. But we were driven to hurry, and how could we continue to carry the stuff without a sack. There were some items of laundry, some pictures, a tea strainer, which I found completely unnecessary.

In Unterretzbach we were allowed to spend the night in a barn with other people. Some straw was piled up on the clay floor, in which each family had built a “nest”. The next day we didn't know where to go. We were hungry, so some of us went to the farmers to beg for bread. That day you came past the barn, we talked to each other and you went on the same day, alone.

Then someone told us that in Schrattenthal am Gutshof workers were wanted for food and accommodation. We went with a group of other people about 10 km. In Schrattenthal we were sorted into seemingly workable and weaklings. My mother was with the weaklings and we were separated. Some men eyed me, turned me around like a piece of cattle in a market. some of our group have already been provided with tools and sent away accompanied by an overseer. Others advised us to go back. My mother cried, I didn't know where to take her. So we decided to leave the estate. We sat down in the ditch near Obernalb, it was now evening. We were hungry and thirsty. My mother cried and wanted to die. Then an older farmer stopped in front of us, who had a little pity for him. "If you judge the vineyard for me, then you can stay," he said. And we went with him somewhat comforted. He directed us to a corner in his barn, there was some straw piled up in the middle of the field equipment. He picked us up at sunrise. For lunch there were potatoes with salt and a strip of bacon, a treat after the many days of hunger. I was given a cup of goat milk every morning and evening. Sometimes the way home was not profitable at noon because the way was too far. I was allowed to take a jug of wine and a piece of bread. The summer was very hot in 1945. The wine was soon drunk. But cherry trees lined the country road. Nobody far and wide. The farmer was not with. So I climbed up into the cherry tree and, despite the wine, my stomach was full of cherries. - After three weeks we had taken care of all of the farmer's vineyards: cut the 16 salmon brood and tied up the shoots with straw. it was a special art that my mother did not understand. Then the farmer puffed up in front of us and said "I don't have any more work for you, you have to find another place". We were assigned to another farming family through the mayor's office, which had since been re-established.

We lived in constant fear. In the vineyards and fields one could hear people crying out for help, especially women, and the hitting of sticks dull on the body and dying whimpering. I cannot list the hiding places I have crawled into everywhere.

Anyway, I didn't hear from my father until autumn. I would be interested to know who or where it is now publicizing that he was caught by the Czechs. I don't really like that this thing is kept stirring up again and again. In the so-called 3rd Reich nobody ever spoke about it. Now my father has been dead for 15 years and nothing happens to him anymore. He has repeatedly claimed that he was innocently treated only because the Pajesi was his friend. My father was a credible and very good-natured person, he was not a daredevil and not adventurous. He went through a lot on the Spielberg in Brno. Still, I want to let things rest and not churn them up again. - We visited military cemeteries, in Alsace, where Germans lie next to French, we were in military cemeteries in South Tyrol and in Normandy. Suffering over suffering. Revenge is not sweet, but bitter, because hate creates hate again. And hate becomes suffering again. Death has healed many wounds; one should not tear them open again in the living.

Greetings from you and your family

Karl and Inge Wozilka

IN THE VINEYARD

In Lower Austria I served as a maid, barefoot, because I no longer had shoes. The cow dirt in the stable swelled softly and warmly between my toes. I slept on straw in the tool shed in a dark corner with a shovel, rake and rake around me. The straw scratches and stings my legs, my arms, the fever shakes me at night, because the sun in the vineyard is hot. What is good for the vine burns my skin. I am alone in the field with the servant, because the farmer spares his own people. Because of the Russians. They ride across the area on small nimble horses, like medieval knights looking for adventure. They have survived the war and are not afraid of death or the devil, and certainly not of the poor population, who froze at the sight of them and remained mostly in the houses. But vineyards and fields want to be cared for. Cut out the servant and I under the scorching sun, the "brood of the axes", which are wild shoots. Nearby voices. Then patter of horses and Russian, hoarse firsts. Quarrels, shouts, cries of woe from female voices, cracking of broken vines, rustling of leaves, dull blows, wooden stick on body, whimpering - silence. The servant is serious. I crouch between the vines and boulders, trembling. The kicks of the little hooves again. The green in front of me divides. A Hun! It's like a thousand years ago. Did I live then, 955? I still live. "Run" calls me, I jump down the vineyard like a tennis ball, light-footed over embankments, cross hollow paths, the more impassable the better. The little horses can't jump, but I can. Then the meadow in the valley, green, lush, moist, cut through by a meandering stream, pastures on the bank. Flashy thought: horses don't like swampy meadows, but I do. Fear carries me weightlessly across the meadows to the pastures. No more noise behind me. The horse had refused, was not as fast as I was. A look back: nothing. The willows are old and hollow and I am young and narrow and slip into the hollow tree. Saved? It seems so. The tree surrounds me, smells of wood and mold, is like a good mother, like a strong father, like an angel. He closes his arms around me, I belong to him like a root, all day long. The sun completes its circle, sinks behind the mountains of the forest district. Fog rises from the meadows, damp and cool. No sound outside, no one calls, no one is looking for me, even I could be killed up there in the vineyard. Maybe they are worried, but no one dares to do it. It is dark. "God, dear tree, thank you!" Crouched from bush to bush, on guard, I approach the village, at some point I reach the courtyard, hit the gate. Whispering voices behind it. Only Russians hit goals. I hate to call my name out loud. The gate opens. I'm sure for now.

POTATO BEETLE

In the morning I woke up with a bang. It is four in the morning. He is standing with my whip in front of my sleeping place. Again and again he swings the whip and pops it like a beer coach. "Get up," he said, "it's daytime." I don’t have to wear anything because I’m sleeping with my clothes on. "You have to get water, my wife has a lot of laundry."

I am the sorcerer's apprentice. I get the water outside the courtyard by the stream, which flows in a slight depression through the middle of the village. I carry fifteen or twenty buckets full, fill the washing troughs in the kitchen, fill the troughs for the cattle in the barn; I cut beets for the goats, they smack and get the bites impatiently from my hand; I climb into the attic and pour hay through the hatch for the cows. They eagerly take it up with bulging lips and push it chewing back and forth in their mouths, they grind it, they do not bite their jaws from top to bottom like other animals. I find that interesting. They look so thoughtful with their big dark eyes and their slow movements have something deliberate. Your prudence is deceptive. Because almost simultaneously, as they eat, they drop huge, steaming chunks at the other end, immeasurably carefree and without movement, which splash on the muddy ground. Little straw is spread out under their feet. I shovel the cow patties and goat buns into a wheelbarrow and push them into the middle of the yard on the dung heap. You get used to the slippery chatting under the bare soles of your feet. Then the farmer calls me for breakfast. There are two hot potatoes with salt and a brown broth.

The farmhand harnesses the cart. He ate before me. While the dawn colors the sky, the cow slowly moves us to Unteralb. The iron-studded wooden wheels crunch through the sand, the poles creak, the air is still pleasant. A potato field spreads out in front of us. The servant hands me a rake and shows me how to hold it. It is heavy and the style is thick, I can hardly get my fingers around it. So the soil is loosened, the weeds removed and the plant that sprouts from the soil is piled up with soil. The rows are endless. "Hü" the servant speaks to the cow like to a horse and they slowly settle down. In the evening he wants to fetch me again, the field is said to be heaped. So I don't dare to take a break. There is nothing to eat anyway, just a jug of wine, which is in the ditch on the Feldrain. Here's a little shade of cherry trees. It shines red and ripe through the leaves. Who do they belong to, what do I know? At some point, the sun has already passed the zenith, I climb up into the branches. The jug is no longer in the shade, and it is already empty. Here in the branches there is still a little air, the cherries are sweet and refreshing and the kernels fly in a wide arc.

Good thing there are no Colorado beetles here. My thoughts go back. It was two years ago that Class 5b was hunting Colorado potato beetles. Equipped with buckets, it started early in the morning. We only had to walk a few kilometers out of the city into the fields. Then we were shown what the beetles looked like, they were striped like zebras, zebra beetles. Some of the girls in the class had never had a beetle in their hands. Some beetles desperately crawled up to us when they noticed the insecurity in the potato trees, some beetles fled the buckets again, some buckets that were already half full fell over and hosts of beetles got away. In the end the potato herb was pretty much trampled, I don't know what happened to the beetles. They were on the run, so the beetles and humans often have the same fate.

THE SCHÖNBAUER

These summer days were hot in 1945. "Your mother is no good," the farmer said to me. "You have to stop for two, otherwise you can sit down in the ditch again." I nod. I want to do everything. I am adept. I have strength and good will. "You're going to cut the barley with me in front of Obernalb," he said one day. We walk, the farmer with the scythe on his shoulder, I with the sickle behind. Only in the afternoon should the farmhand come with the team, the cart with the ox. The sand crunches along the way. Seabed how many millions of years ago?

Again and again a basement house or a gate in a hill. Then the barley field, yellow, mobile, the stalks sway, like a big animal it lies in front of us and breathes, up and down.

He takes a lot of pains, the farmer, if he wants to mow that alone and I should tie all the sheaves, alone. No time for questions. The scythe rustles, the stalks fall evenly, they lie in a row. I take her in my arms with my sickle and tie the sheaves. The awns sting, you should have long sleeves and covered legs. Always stoop. I can hardly stand upright around noon. The sun burns relentlessly. Thirst is worse than hunger. Half of it was done in the early afternoon. The knees are trembling. "We're going to have a drink," he says, putting the scythe away. He trudges in front of me on the way to a basement gate. Steep down the stairs into the cool and dark belly of the earth. He knows his way around here, lights a candle. Down here lies barrel to barrel with the curve leaning against each other. A rough table, a rough wooden bench in a niche. It is the same in all basements. I went to a "basement" with my father a few times. Carved from fine sandstone in beautiful cellars, with painted walls and the finest fine wines. Because the people who were there soon started to sing and were happy. Nothing can be admired here in this cellar and nobody is happy. "Sit down," the farmer suddenly says kindly, "I'll give you something to drink." I drink the wine for thirst. He brings bread and smoked meat. I start to wonder a lot. Bread was precious. There was at most Sunday. During the week we only had potatoes and salt. And you appreciated that. I hardly dared to eat in amazement. Then he said "sit on the bench like this" and he straddled. It seems very uncomfortable to me, the table top was difficult to reach in this way. I don't like it and I don't do it, and I see his face and eyes open and the trains tense and his breath is quick and I feel scary. I jump on and over the bench and want to run to the exit. But he catches up with me and pushes me against the basement wall, so that I feel the hard and irregular shape of the bricks in the back. His hands are claws, one claw is enough to press me against the stones. The other claw disappears under his big dark blue apron and is busy and excited. "It unties something" I think. "He has hidden weapons with him, probably for defense against the Russians." He comes close to me. His panting breath smells of wine, something hard is moving under his apron. "A hammer," I think through my head, "he wants to kill me like he killed my poor dog. He is crazy ”. He is now bracing himself against the wall with both claws and I am free for a few seconds. I let myself fall quickly and straight into the narrow area that remains between the wall and its sweaty body. He is wide-legged and through this tackle I quickly slip through and on to the barrels and into the free space that results between them, since they cannot stand closer than their bellies allow. I crawl on the cold floor to the back wall. I squeeze myself into the narrow space with difficulty. Astonished, he stays in the side posture for a while, turns to me, but cannot follow me with his plump body and cannot reach me to pull myself out. I curled up in this gap. How long? He goes away. The candlelight disappears. Hunger and thirst disappear. The fear remains for hours. Then he comes back visibly sobered. He focuses on fine talk, on begging. "Come on out, we have to go home, I won't do anything to you." Finally, I hear him climbing the stairs again. I crawl out carefully. And when his shadow stands out against the light at the entrance, I sneak up. He says nothing. The servant had now arrived with the ox cart. The field was mowed and the farmhand had started charging. I should go home alone ahead. "Woe, you're telling someone!" Who should I tell what? That he gave me bread and meat and wine to eat and drink? That he wanted to slay me? Who would believe me Where should i go

MY FATHER APPEARS

It has happened more and more often that the farmer hissed at me as he passed: "Just wait, I can still get you!". I now knew what he meant. "I'm going to make you prince," he added. E should probably be a consolation. But it was unbearable, my perplexity was endless. I couldn't and didn't want to stay here.

It was early September. Suddenly someone knew where my father was. He was particularly well known here in the Retz area. Not only because of the photo business, which had flourished during the war, because all soldiers had to have a military pass and the civilians had a passport photo, but he had many friends among the rural population. Even in grandfather's day it was customary to end the obligatory Sunday trip with a "basement". It wasn't a booze, it was a cultivated cheerful enjoyment, an art of friendly relaxation through lively conversations with a few glasses of wine. There was always a lute or mandolin and it was sung. An art that you no longer understand today. In grandfather's time, the so-called founding years, there was an unprecedented mental attitude, the social feeling. Renowned businessmen rented a covered wagon with a team of horses on Sundays. It was festively decorated and everyone involved in the business, without exception, was invited to take a trip into the countryside. The business owner paid for the costs. A company party, a thank you to the employees, not ordered by the state or a trade union, an act of humanity, togetherness, responsibility. Perhaps the thoughts of Bismarck's reforms have already taken root. This kind of friendships and acquaintances grew that could be transferred to descendants. These friendships were now paying off.

My father had found accommodation with a wealthy farmer in exchange for offering his labor. My mother and I made the pilgrimage in the hope that we might find accommodation here. I couldn't exchange words with Father. Our appearance made him uncomfortable. The strict peasant woman made it factually clear to my mother and me that there would be no place for us here. Somehow my mother could understand why our stay in Obernalb could not be continued. A small meeting took place. The farmer wrote a few words on a handout, which allowed an audition to the mayor, at whose instigation we were given the right to live in Retz. Russians, refugees, expelled, Viennese, whose houses were bombed, plus the few locals: the small town burst at the seams, so to speak. Food was scarce. But a certain striving for order began to take hold: there was a Russian command post that had been quartered in one of the most distinguished houses on the market square. Russians in clean uniforms with various medals attached suggested officers. These decided on the fate of the crowds huddled here. We got the right to live, not an apartment. We were assigned regular work for a regular fee in the municipal wine and agriculture association.

THE OLD MRS. RABEL

In Vincencigasse, which led past the church and monastery to the city wall, a few tiny old houses lined up closely together. We should move into one of these houses. The entrance at ground level led into a spacious hallway that ended in the rear part of the house. A small walled courtyard followed. From the hallway one could enter a room that was a little lower than the entrance and the only window facing the courtyard, at the same height as the outside floor. Mrs. Rabel lived here. She appeared small, delicate and frail. Her husband had been a shoemaker and had his workshop here. He had died long ago. Ms. Rabel made her living by renting the apartment on the mezzanine floor, kitchen and two rooms. A war widow with a child lived here. Somehow we had to make arrangements. The warrior widow made her bedroom available. The double beds stood on a pedestal, like a catheter 18 in old classrooms, you climbed up, as if to a special place, as if to a sacred place.

There was enough work in the municipal wine and agriculture association, always in communal groups. The attacks by the Russians were reduced and were even punished by the command. Attempts were made to give city life a somewhat orderly coat of paint. We were out all day. Nevertheless, the living conditions were very cramped. We had no way to prepare meals in the bedroom. The kitchen was not available to us. When leaving the house and on the way to the toilet, we always had to walk past the sleeping woman, the widow and her child. Sometimes they pretended not to have to speak. It was not a permanent condition for everyone involved.

Mrs. Rabel in her basement apartment became sickly. Her sister in the house next door seemed to have a solution. “Ms. Rabel is bedridden. I cannot take care of her because my husband is also ill and needs me. If you are ready, Ms. Nather, to take care of her, you can sleep with her and also cook a little. ”Ms. Nather, my mother, was of course ready.

In the room there was a bed opposite each other on the wall, a table in the middle and a stove in the darkest part. So mother had a bed, slept opposite Ms. Rabel. There was no room for a third bed. There was only a wooden bench across the cellar door. This door, a round arch made of heavy wood, was locked and barred with broad iron bands. It led down steep stone steps into the corridors, which, like in Znojmo, were all interconnected. Today these courses are also a special feature of the area in Retz, a tourist attraction par excellence. They undermine the city twenty-six kilometers.

At that time, however, they were still densely filled with barrels, filled with good wines. When the Russians discovered this secret, everything went underground. In order to consume faster, they opened the bungs, let the wine run out, bathed in it, drank lying down because they could no longer stand, many drowned. As I lay on the wooden bed, I heard the gurgling roar behind the basement door. The fear that some of the bugs could spot the stairs and come up and break the door stole my sleep.

Mrs. Rabel was getting worse. She was clear, but very weak. She often spent her hours in need of help in night bowls, often next to it. Still, she had an appetite. Her sister sometimes brought her something edible, e.g. B. a poppy seed roll. A kingdom for such a bread. Silly saying. Kingdoms and even empires no longer existed. Not even to give away. Frau Rabel greedily took the bread with shaky, emaciated hands, and hid it under the covers right next to the bowl. "Ms. Nather, I have a folder that prints!" Moaned Ms. Rabel. My mother lifted the blanket, removed the bowl, smoothed the sheet, and everything was full of poppy seeds. But they were alive, bouncing back and forth, seeming startled by the sudden drafts and looking for new warm hiding places in a hurry. It was the purest circus, a flea circus. Fleas and poppy seeds were indistinguishable. "I can't eat the bread", Mrs. Rabel regretted, "you can have it Inge". Despite hunger, I didn't feel like it. I preferred to go to the city wall, nettle poached there. They made the best soup.

One day Mrs. Rabel's sighing stopped. It was strangely quiet. She no longer complained about wrinkles on her back. She no longer opened her eyes or mouth. When she stopped breathing, her jaw dropped and her eyes turned to the ceiling. Mother called for the sister. She came to see for herself.

At that time there was no mortuary. The dead remained in the house until the funeral. So we slept for three nights with a dead woman who had the worst smells.

LEGACIES

My pleated skirt and two blouses had become rags in the summer due to heat, sweat, and occasional rain. Even a pair of shoes was used up. Mrs. Rabel rummaged in her treasure chest and took out a skirt that came from her youth. It was striped in red and black and had a yellow strand on the hem. It looked like a new fashion. I wore this skirt for a long time, it didn't need to be changed. Among the treasures of the chest were a few shoes, made of black leather, elegantly narrow and Turkish pointed. Maybe wedding shoes. My feet were swollen from walking barefoot. Only in the morning and with difficulty could I put my feet in my shoes. They were the only pair of shoes I had for a year. I even went to school in Esslingen with it and sparked suspicious gazes with it and with my skirt.

VIENNA It was autumn in Retz. The wine and agriculture association no longer had any work to offer. Everyone had established themselves somehow. The realization prevailed that the return to Znojmo was not the best. My father had contacted his brother in Vienna. Uncle Paul lived alone as a bachelor and enemy of women in a small apartment that was decorated with several oil paintings in gold frames. At home he played mainly chorals and other church music on a harmonium and he boasted that he sometimes played the organ in St. Stephen's Cathedral. Family circles had whispered that he was a little weird because his mother, who finally wanted a girl after four boys when she was pregnant for the fifth time, tried to hide her disappointment with the fifth boy by trying to hide her disappointment had only put him on girl dresses. Uncle Paul couldn't take me in, but he knew what to do. There was a girls' boarding school near Alserstrasse, of good reputation, Pensionat Kastali. I would be in good hands there. In addition to the usual costs, the pension administration asked for goods in kind, especially from the girls who came from the country. In my case there was no waiting for food, but with firewood. My father had found eight sacks of firewood, which were deposited with Uncle Paul and should only be gradually brought to the boarding school. I don't know who ultimately got at least a lukewarm room with the wood.

THE GIRL FROM THE MOON The winter was extremely cold. Only the dining room was a bit overturned, all other rooms remained unheated. There were no window panes. They broke up during the bombing of Vienna. The windows were taped with newspaper. This not only made it dark, it also didn't stop the cold. It was so cold that we went to bed in full winter clothes. Back then everyone was wearing felt boots. They came into fashion in the last years of the war, as far as one could speak of fashion, because their manufacture was cheaper - it is better not to speak of where the hair came from - than leather boots, which were reserved for the military.

I only took off my felt boots before going to bed. All the girls slept under the covers with their day clothes. Some of them only so that they could get up again all the more quickly after the professor whispered "Good night!" To the gently opened door of the apparently still asleep.

In Austria, all women of advanced age, if they did not come from the country, call themselves “Frau Professor” and the men “engineer”. The renunciation of nobility predicates could not be ache, so this title was a weak substitute for it.

In the style of the imperial family, you never knew, Professor Professor was wearing black clothes, ankle-length, with a closed stand-up collar and a pince-nez19 either in her hand or on her nose. In the dining room she sat at the top of the table and gracefully said a table prayer before each meal. It was always the same: "All eyes are waiting for you, you give them their food in their time, you open your hand and fill everything that lives with pleasure." All eyes were on the soup tureen. How can the word "pleasure" be interpreted? Like many months, years, there was no food at any time. When was the hand open that one would have loved to reach for, at least only hinted at? Instead, it seemed, at least, the fingers curled into a fist that kept an unfathomable secret hidden. The meal, like prayer, was the same three times a day: a plate of soup made from pea porridge, a uniform meal of the population and the Russian soldiers. In addition, a slice of white bread that was as thin as tissue paper, you could literally see through. In the morning, coffee was served instead of soup, by name, I think it was diluted molasses made from sugar beet. All the girls had a contact point somewhere, where they could also get a few bites. Not me. Uncle Paul had said, "Come to me if you need anything!" I was there twice, had rung the bell, noticed how someone was looking through the "spy", the peephole. It was not opened.

After meals, some girls spoke French to the professor. They obviously liked it when others didn't understand them. I had learned English, and not bad, as it turned out later, I only knew the sound of French. I was the country pomeranian here.

All girls had a family home, parents, or at least one parent, or grandparents, uncles or aunts, where they could spend the weekend. They came back relaxed, in a good mood, with fresh laundry and ironed clothes at the beginning of the week. Of course, everyone had a friend and was not afraid to talk about it.

After Professor said "Good night!" It was like "fire free" in the crew cabin. They left the bed, sneaked out of the house and only reappeared at dawn before the "waking up" was announced. Some told horror stories. They would have been in a cemetery with their friend, who was said to be a medical student, climbed the tombs already opened by grave robbers and took skulls. They could be sold at good prices. Everything was possible here. Have I lived on the moon since then?

THURN & TAXIS

The first snow was falling, although October had not yet come to an end. In the streets of the city it soon became dirty, yes black. Oh snow, you are homesick like me and you can't go back to heaven.

From time to time a freight forwarding company Haberfeldner drove between Vienna and Retz; a rickety truck with an open cargo area. He transported boxes, suitcases, sacks, spoons, and also people. Because the train hardly worked at all. When all the baggage was loaded, you could climb up and look for a hiding place in which you hoped to find a hold and some protection from the cold.

The truck drove for two to three hours because it stopped in each village, loaded and unloaded, always crowded by a group of people who also wanted to join. In Vienna you arrived stiffly frozen, hardly able to move. So I got the most beautiful frostbite despite my felt boots.

Would Thurn & Taxis, the first postal company from Vienna to Luxembourg five hundred years ago, transport their people and goods more comfortably?

EVERYDAY LIFE

The common washrooms in the boarding house were very busy in the mornings and evenings. It was the only way to get in touch with warm water. There were no showers, the washbasins were separated by curtains or wooden walls. I was not used to undressing in front of others, not even girls. I tried to come when the hustle and bustle had subsided, but most of the time there was no more warm water.

I was able to reach the school via Langegasse without using the tramway. It was a real city school building, with strict high windows, cheerless gray facades in the middle of house canyons. The classrooms were clearly overcrowded. We sat in coats and gloves, without books, without notebooks and writing materials, with clammy fingers and hungry stomachs, each self-conscious, with no desire to approach each other. Two Jewish girls sat close together in the back row of seats, they only spoke in Hebrew to each other. I wondered where they could have been hiding during the war and hostile times. Many just sat there to get confirmation of having attended high school.

Philosophy was one of the new subjects. That was quite interesting and suits me. In geography or biology, the regular growth of the crystals was discussed and calculated in detail: tetrahedron, octahedron. How should you remember everything without supporting it with notes? Angular functions, sine, cosine. A lot of things were interesting and were remembered. Some things needed further explanation. After all, I had skipped a year. So I went to Mödling to see a young woman with a baby. We had good conversations, in between she looked after the baby. She was happy about the two marks I brought with me. It was a little warmer in her apartment than in Kastali's lounge.

The way by tramway and light rail and sometimes walking was long. The darkness of November soon fell. There was hardly any street light in Vienna. There were no illuminated shops. If there were any glassed-in windows, they were unlit, and there was little or no light coming through paper-clad windows. To the left and right of the road lay piles of rubble. Only the middle of the lane was cleared because of the electrical1. From the Stadtbahn station down Alserstrasse to the confluence with Langegasse it was pitch dark and no one was to be seen. Everything crawled like rats between the cairns in makeshift accommodations.

Can I hear steps behind me? Is it imagination? A quick look back is of no use. Yawning blackness. Finally the Langegasse. It wasn't as bad as the bombs. The rows of three- to four-story houses from the Wilhelminian period towered like lonely colossi. On the next Mödling appointment, a man suddenly appears next to me at the Stadtbahn station. I keep walking, although I notice that he wants to speak to me, he is on the side. “I've been watching them for a long time,” he said, “They get in here at a regular time on Tuesday, drive to Mödling and come back in the evening. At the same time. You have a nice walk. I could mediate them to the ballet, as suitable people are currently being sought. ”I continue to walk without answering. "Listen Miss, I'm serious about the offer. You have a career ahead of you. Why are not you answering? Think about it. I'll be back next Tuesday. ”The train is coming, I'm getting on and I'm happy to get away.

BALLET AND BEEF

Maybe the man is right. After all, I had been in a ballet school in Znojmo since I was five. Father wanted it that way. It was in the Maze House on Oberen Platz, the winter palace of the Ugartes von Jaispitz. A strange coincidence that I didn't know at the time. It was those nobles with whom maternal grandparents and great-grandfathers had worked. I liked to go there and live in the fairy tales that we were supposed to tell through body language. Surrender yourself and let yourself go into another world, a soothing rapture. The teacher preferred me, moved me to a special class. I stayed there for about seven years. Then Lotte Sevelin moved to Vienna. In the meantime we also belonged to the Third Reich and everything had changed. Together with school friends, we visited another ballet group under the guidance of an elderly lady who put more emphasis on physical training and art jumps that she could not perform than on internalization.

It was all over. A long time ago. The man who was walking next to me might not be wrong. That would be a tempting prospect for the future, an opportunity to shape life. “Ade cellar apartment in Vincencigasse!

The young teacher friend in Mödling listened to my report on the mysterious offer from the persecutor. "Dear child," she said, "don't go into it! You don't know what is going on in Vienna at the moment. Incredible things happen. There is real human trafficking. Young blonde girls are particularly in demand. Promises bring them to consent to a rendez-vous from which they never return. At best, they end up in a harem of southeastern countries from which they can never escape, because they were bought. ”She knew even worse. Young girls who could not be sold well were slaughtered. The famine was great. There were no slaughter animals. Not in this crowded city, hardly in the country. The Russian invasion force was as hungry as the soldiers who remained from German Wehrmacht associations, who wandered aimlessly, if they could not go home, to relatives and places to stay in eastern Germany, which were no longer German, like stray dogs. Countless people simply disappeared into Vienna. Nobody counted them. The boiling Völkerkessel did not allow orderly municipal work. Suddenly veal was offered in cans, at high prices on the flourishing black market. Mostly hacked. Gradually it became known how to make soap from bone fat, human fat and lampshades from skin, human skin, and felt materials from human hair, a commodity from German concentration camps I moved my study lesson in Mödling to another day, at a different time, to another light rail station. But in the darkness of Alserstrasse I heard the steps that followed me again. "You angered me, my lady! I've been waiting for you! You shouldn't keep anyone waiting. I don't like that! ”So he threatened. What now? I can't run. Not with felt boots, not over the scattered bricks in the dark. But a tram came. People get out. I mingle with them, ready to call for help. There were more people towards the city center. I reached the house under their protection. I gave up my Mödling lesson. Only went to school and back, during the day. In December I sat on the truck between the various piles at five in the morning and came to Retz half-frozen.

BACK HOME

You could get information from the billboards - there were still no newspapers. All non-Austrians, except the Russians, of course, have to be at the train station, exact dates followed, they are brought to Germany by special train. The action has been postponed several times. After standing and waiting for hours, we were sent away. Then it worked. In the snow flurry on a February day.

It was cattle cars that we had to squeeze into. Without light, without seats, without blankets, dark spots on the floor. Some people still had luggage to sit on. We huddled together. The trip took three weeks. The train often stops on siding. Pee breaks. In the snow. It didn't matter who stood next to it. The demarcation line was in Salzburg. People from the Red Cross appeared, provided us with hot tea and bread. We got away from the Russians, everything is getting better under the Americans in Germany. The first delousing took place. Although men and women in separate rooms, we were shoved through a chamber close to each other and dusted. Yes, there was order in Germany. And so we came "home to the Reich". Torn up, ragged, no longer lousy, without property, as Hitler had promised. At home, but not at home, not at home. A new book is opened.

LETTER TO JOSCHI NOEL

Karl Wozilka January 2006

Hello dear Joschi Noel,

as is the case when you retire, addresses are first exchanged and then memories. And then suddenly people appear who, because they belong to Znojmo, are also very alive in their memories. Now we hardly knew each other, only from hearsay actually. And since Stazi has given us your email address with the request to report something about our experiences and about the friend Elli, I want to try to fulfill this wish. Yes, when we were still living in Znojmo, Elli2 in Kerneckerstrasse and I in Höckstrasse, we were good friends. We both had a bike, the others didn't yet, so we got a bit further out of the city and enjoyed going on adventures and expeditions. We were together at the Schimberger Teich near Schönwald for a swim. My mother was there too. Without a mother we cycled up the Thayatal to the bull rock, where it has already started to become impassable. We shouldered our bicycles over the bull rock, a mighty block of Granti that fell into the water in a smooth wall to the Thaya, and climbed down on the other side. It was difficult here because a kind of moraine lay over the entire valley slope. They were big boulders, it was not easy to overcome them by bike. When we arrived at the Thayaufer we realized that it was impossible to take the same way back. So we looked for a Furth and, always with our bikes on our backs, we ran across to the other bank. Now, in Frain, they have drained water from the reservoir from time to time, without notice, and of course the water level rose. Pretty quickly. A way through foreign waters, with the bike on my back, with rising tide, so that was already adventurous. The bull rock, which fell so vertically and unfathomably into the depth of the Thaya, did not allow us any other way, no detour. The other bank was also steep but overgrown, and so we gradually worked our way wet, freezing and in darkness to Trausnitz. We didn't have a flashlight and just crawled along the slope, always along the river. A faint light burned in the Trausnitzmühle. I think there was a small electrical plant in the building at the time. But it was surrounded by a wall and an insurmountable wire gate blocked the way. Our shouting and shouting didn't help. Nobody heard us, because behind it the water rushed over different weirs. How was it behind the wall? How deep? Water? Stones? We decided to throw a bike down to find out where it caught our eye. It sounded like you could jump up. We did that too. We ended up in a nettle field. But safe. Then we worked our way into the dimly lit engine room. There were two men who looked at us in amazement. We then made our way home on one healthy bike that wasn't thrown over the wall. The Elli like a saddlebag on the luggage rack. The road in Thayatal was like a redemption to us. But here, too, we weren't allowed to turn on the bike, you know, because of planes and spies. It was already after midnight when we arrived at Marienplatz. Our parents or mothers stood there, arguing loudly and desperately. I don't remember what the reception was like. So this is an example of our ventures that have welded us together very much. After the expulsion we found each other again in Retz. Since several Znojmo were also our age, including teachers from our school, it was decided to set up a “Znojmo class”. And so we all tried to create somewhat normal conditions. We went to school, which is featured in the “famous” film by the extraordinary woman Hörbiger, here Julia. At the time, Elli lived in Mitterretzbach with his brother and parents. She came to school every day through a ravine across the fields. In the satchel she had a hammer, which she always carried with her to defend herself against intrusive Russians. I mean, she was never scared. We came to Germany in so-called refugee transports, hardly any luggage, crammed into cattle cars. The trip took three weeks. On the way, the Red Cross finally distributed warm tea and bread in Germany. Sometimes we stood on some siding in an unknown area for days. At least there was an opportunity to "hit the bushes". Otherwise we were like pigs. We sat on backpacks or on the dirty wooden floor of the wagons, uncombed and unwashed, and we didn't know which slaughterhouse the train would take us to.

We were separated on the way because the transport was too long. So we got lost. Only after we were accommodated in Germany were we able to find our addresses through correspondence with mutual acquaintances. I lived in Weiler near Göppingen, Elli with parents in Bergheim near Esslingen. I immediately went to visit her when I consulted geographically. Barefoot because I had no shoes. You cannot imagine the joy of reunion.

I worked in a weaving mill in Ebersbach to get food stamps. I also got shoes, on cover slip. Elli was cared for by her parents. Her father soon found work in the city. The summer, which had brought us enough adventure, was coming to an end. As addicted to education as we were, we decided to finish our school together. The Schidlos now lived in Esslingen, and so the girls' high school in Esslingen offered itself. It was good there. We were fond of schoolchildren. We were the two oldest of the so-called refugee girls. We were allowed to work for the younger ones. We were given presents for Christmas, e.g. with socks and gloves and the celebration was pretty festive. One of us, Elli or I, should give a speech to the students. The lot fell on me. It was my first speech to people. After graduating from high school, Elli stayed in Esslingen. The family lived well on the father's income. But I came to my father in Wertheim am Main. He had tried to set up a very modest photo business there. For me, the time in Wertheim was not a good one. Elli and I longed for each other. I didn't have time to look for new friendships. Elli soon had a friend, that was Anton Eberharder. They got married after two or three years. Toni had studied mechanical engineering and ran a heating assembly company with his father. Business was booming. It was the time when people started building "houses" and furnishing them with oil heaters. Elli and Toni could afford vacations that I didn't even dare to dream of. I have to confess, I envied her sometimes. Then the children came. After the second child, Elli found it difficult to recover. She had two girls. But Toni and father-in-law wanted a “regular owner” for business. Although her family doctor had advised her against a third child, she became pregnant again, had a girl again, but never made it. It started with poor vision, circulatory disorders, emotional disorders in the motor area, she became bedridden. Her mother-in-law now took care of the three children, including the little one! and two men, husband and son, and the bedridden Elli. That was too much for the woman. She became heart sick. For a long time, it had not been recognized by the doctor's side which illness was hidden with Elli. Many cures were unsuccessful. Finally, in Tübingen, it was concluded that multiple sclerosis was occurring. In the meantime, she was confined to a wheelchair. But brave as she was, and because little was known about the disease, she still had hope of improvement. She played ball with her children, out of a wheelchair. Or she went on long trips alone in a wheelchair, like back then by bike, from Esslingen to the Schurwald forest in Plochingen. Her father had passed away in the meantime, the mother alone, while the woman Eberharder (Toni's mother) did not know anymore before work. So Elli "came back" to the mother's household. And how it works. Toni got a healthy friend. Elli did not agree to a divorce. It blocked that Toni could build a new life again. Elli stayed with her mother and when she was unable to take care of her sick daughter, mother and daughter were placed in the same home. That was in Bietigheim-Bissingen. Elli was getting worse and worse, sometimes the disease stagnated. But not in this case. Elli died twelve years ago. Her mother had survived her for a few more years. We were no longer connected to Toni. So she spent 35 years in a wheelchair. And the whole big family was involved in their suffering.

Such fates have to be kept in mind when one is stalked by dissatisfaction. I have often thought of my jealousy from before and realized that this is really a completely unnecessary tendency. Thinking of Elli, I never managed to envy anyone anymore. Actually sad that you need such a school.

LETTER TO JOSCHI NOEL Karl Wozilka in January 2006

Hello Joschi,

According to your wishes, I want to tell you in telegram style how "my way" has been from 1945 to the present day. With Stazi, Schopfi and other Znojmo boys from the News HJ. I ended up in the military training camp at Schloss-Stuppach near Gloggnitz in late autumn 1944. I don't remember that you were there. As the front line moved closer and closer to where we were staying, we loaded the radios and all equipment and weapons onto platform trucks, which we were hauled up in front of, and hurried through the Höllental to the west. On the way I was separated from the small group Znojmo. I.e. Stadler, Schopf and others were able to return to Znojmo on adventurous paths, as I later learned. I finally ended up in a news school in Linz because I had a bad grasp of Morse code. In a very stressful short training I came into the wire radio transmission room of the Gauleiter of Oberdonau Eigruber, decrypted and transmitted the air situation reports from the bunker, later only messages about the course of the front. When the American artillery from Urfahr finally covered the city with grenades, we radio operators (meanwhile I had a military pass, uniform and smoking card) were transferred to assault vehicles in a southern direction and we landed at Goisern on May 5th. The war ended there in a dramatic action. We stood in an unmistakable long column of horse-drawn carriages, ambulances, tanks, anti-aircraft guns and tankers and were supposed to cross the Pötschenpass. Suddenly an American jeep overtook the column, a German lieutenant informed via a megaphone that the war was over: One should turn back and stop going. In the column were the Gauleiter, senior SS officers and a knight's cross bearer in the immediate vicinity. The command: march forward! we keep fighting! In the meantime, our department had been taken out of the assault car and replaced with a lame vehicle powered by wood gas. I was instructed by the driver as a “stoker”. And then the post went into the passport. Halfway up, at the end of Goisern, our vehicle stalled and prevented the column from continuing. I tore open the carburetor lid and wanted to reload. The fire went out completely and they wanted to shoot me as a saboteur. Our vehicle was rushed out of line and we rolled slowly over a meadow slope back to Goisern. The column continued on the way. As soon as we got to the bottom, 20 American fighter-bombers appeared in the clear blue sky and unloaded their terrible load into the passport in the form of cluster bombs and 2 cm handguns. A terrible inferno presented itself to our eyes, only the casings of the bullets dropped on us. I recognized the rescuer of the small team, which consisted of two battle-proven non-commissioned officers and five almost adult soldiers. At the award ceremony I was given ½ liter of gin with sugar (I did not know alcohol and its effects at the time) and was almost passed out in a haystack. It was only two days later that I was able to get up. Thank God they didn't let me down in my frenzy. In a pitiful state, I bypassed Salzburg due to impending prisoner of war, moved along mountain paths, past Lake Zell, and sometime in mid-May I landed in Marchtrenk on a small farm that was run by two old sisters. The "Miss" Haberfellner took me in as a small boy and took care of me until I was completely restored.

In the meantime, a certain overview of the entire situation after the lost war had been gained. It was heard how the lines of demarcation ran between the Americans and the Russians, and something vague was heard about the situation at home. All attempts, via various contact points such as the Red Cross, Swiss and international search services, etc. getting a picture failed. So I decided to go to Znojmo on my own. Equipped with a backpack, provisions and colored uniform parts, I overcame the closely guarded military borders at Mauthausen, and I set out, partly on trucks, partly on foot towards Vienna in march. We continued via Poysdorf, where I already met the sad train of the designated old Brno, to the border at Nikolsburg. I was almost arrested for trying to legally enter the Czech Republic. A short time later I crossed the border in a terrible thunderstorm black and found shelter in a farm where the German residents were still hoping to be able to stay. I was infected by the Ruhr there and stayed in the village for a few days. At night we experienced the horrors of the Russian Soldateska. The women and girls were hidden in the hayloft, the courtyard gates were barely barricaded. Days later I continued my march towards Znojmo. In Weissstetten I was handed down to the "Narodni Vybor" by a German-speaking group of men. A day of hard work: covering the roof in the scorching heat of the only intact house. This was where the N.V committee lived (in complete SA uniform!): After I had finished my work in the evening, I was interrogated and my Germanness was reproached. Sing the watch on the Rhine! was the order, and my bare buttocks were beaten up with a karabatsch. Then I was put on the march and should come to the Moravian Kromau concentration camp. I found a “loophole”, hid in a ruin, waited for the night and was then able to continue on Brünnerstrasse. I arrived in Tesswitz at dawn. A few women who had worked in the Ditmar factory recognized me and started shouting. I walked carefree to Schallersdorf and reached the field in an adventurous way and crouched through the vineyards or finally crawled across the border to Unterretzbach. After a rest break at Retz - people were always found to help you, even if in need - I set off in the west. Where? was the question after I knew my people were no longer at home. Finally I ended up in Marchtrenk with the two good spirits in Upper Austria. It was harvest time: with a 28-year-old horse, two old women, a 75-year-old servant, a toddler in my person, and another soldier from my homeland coped with the work in the field. Threshing was carried out with the village's only threshing machine until Christmas. (They went from farm to farm and helped.) There was at least decent food. The many deaths that had to be cared for, because dying was the order of the day, the old gravedigger could no longer handle alone, so I was assigned to him. (Conversations that got underway during the hard work in the cemetery still remind me of scenes from Shakespeare's Hamlet).

I later worked for the electricity company and helped set up new masts. Garden houses in the neighborhood should be painted with Carbolineum, unfortunately there were no rubber gloves. The consequences were very painful. Finally the school principal discovered me as a prospective teacher, provided me with a discarded bicycle and sent me to the surrounding large courtyards of the "Mostviertel" to teach disabled or school-shy children there. As a reward, I brought home all sorts of food such as flour, potatoes, sometimes a piece of bacon from these “farmer's castles”. Marie was then able to make edible food (broad beans was our daily bread). Unfortunately, the only sow that survived the war on the farm had to be slaughtered because it contracted erysipelas. A funeral procession accompanied her to the nearby forest, where she was laid to rest. One night later in the year we had a sheep that was slaughtered the same night, making the survival of the farm residents more bearable for weeks. On my birthday in April 1956, I finally found out surprisingly from a message from relatives that my relatives had found a new home in Gaildorf in Baden Württemberg. With a refugee transport I reached the final destination of my Odyssey after a 14-day trip across Germany. After I had told my experiences at home, I was given the nickname of a "modern Simplizius". But now in a nutshell: 5 months of work on a wood yard in a furniture factory in Gaildorf. In the autumn of 1946, an entrance exam (after a two-year break) to the advanced grammar school. 1950 Completion and beginning of studies at the Pedagogical Institute in Schwäbisch Gmünd. 1952 First state examination for teaching at primary schools. January 9, 1953 first school position in Aalen, in the summer of the same year transfer to primary and secondary school in Ellwangen. At Pentecost in 1953, I met Ingeborg Nather at a “small” meeting in the Znojmo at Lake Ebnisee. In 1955 we got married in extremely modest circumstances. I find a new job in a village near Crailsheim. In 1960 our daughter Jenny was born, two years later our son Elmar. In 1990 I quit school and we moved to our little house in Wallhausen. Thank you for your New Year's greetings and I would like to pass them on with the best wishes for you and yours. As you learned from my war and post-war descriptions, I probably conquered the terrain in Upper Austria before you. I am still familiar with the area today, and when we travel to Znojmo, which happens more often in the year, many memories of that time arise in me. In Hörsching e.g. I discovered our neighboring family from Znojmo near the then Amiflugplatz and learned a lot from them about the end of the Greater German Empire.

My dear Inge always reminds me to write down my experiences from back then. You have now experienced a tiny section, but I am tired of thinking about these times, and I also want to beautify my children and others with them. You have probably experienced something similar, which of course would also interest me. But I ask that the exchange between us, as well as that with Erich Stadler and me, only remains in the intimate area, as in the mutual storytelling.

I hope that Inges and my report are well received by you. And I look forward to messages from you.

All the best and see you soon,

Karl and Ingeborg

HUNGER Ingeborg Wozilka Sunday June 30, 2002 GD dog sports ground in the countryside

hunger

I learned to beg It wasn't a shame but bitter need.

In front of locked doors I stand and still want just a piece of bread.

You have little yourself they don’t want to share that, and fear makes you hard.

My mother will cry I'll come back With empty hands.

The barracks, a castle one day, soldiers laugh and sing,

and they throw with Bread rinds after me, I chase after it.

And then in the grass another piece of bark, brown and crispy,

behind me, next to me, almost like rain, like a dog

on all fours I hurry collecting in the apron skirt.

The songs fall silent the little spectacle lures everyone to the window.

Fright grips me I am fair game when they come out.

Keep running, run with the bread in the skirt, run.

Today I like to sing and others starve and beg somewhere in the world.

LETTER TO HANS BRENNECKE

Ingeborg Wozilka Obere Heide 11 D 74599 Wallhausen Tel. 07955-530

August 20, 2005

Dear Hans Brennecke.

The preparation for our meeting in Schorndorf or Neuwirtshaus went so quickly that I had no opportunity to deal with it in detail. Karl could just make the pictures and the letter copies. In addition, these pictures are actually everything I have from the “old family” Brennecke. In Znojmo there were two large albums with photographs of the Brennecke family. They were kept in a precious casket with tortoiseshell inlays (oh dear), so that they seemed particularly valuable to me as a child.

On Thursday, one day after our meeting, the thought occurred to me to look in one of my document folders and I actually found her birth and baptismal certificate among my mother's documents, on which I made a special discovery. I have always looked at this note as a whole and have not read it carefully, otherwise I would have noticed the following:

Father, mother: Wilhelm Brennecke Maria, daughter of Florian Wuck etc. Castle finder in Znojmo and the Theresia born Duschberger

that means that the father of “Mizerl” 2, from whom the letters come, had a similar job to Wilhelm Brennecke in Jaispitz. The first name "Florian" also confirms my memory of the "Florian in spirit". The little one got its name from the maternal grandfather. This way of burying children seemed so strange and macabre to me when I heard about it. However, it should have been common at the time. Then I remembered that there really had to be a fifth child of the married couple Mizerl and Wilhelm Brennecke.3 My mother told of a small child, whom the maids often warmed her frozen hands on and who died of pneumonia afterwards . A young. I don't know the name. 4

My mother's stories also include the strange-sounding story that the children, i.e.Margarete, Heinrich and Minna, could not communicate with their parents at all because the parents (Mizerl and Wilhelm) could not speak Czech, but the children only could spent their day with the Czech staff, who in turn did not speak German. So it happened that the children often could not exchange with their parents. The parents were so busy that they had no time to raise their children. It seems that the two counties, Mizerl and Wilhelm, were quite demanding

The letters from Mizerl (already handed over to you as a copy) show what influence the counts had that they even determined the names of the children: Max after the count Max and Heinrich after the count Heinrich6 called Henry. If my mother had spoken of Henry, I thought it was showing off because I didn't know the letters at that time. According to these two letters, Mizel did not seem to be doing well after Heinrich was born.

At the age of 18 she had married Wilhelm Brennecke, who was 20 years older, and had at least these five children in a row (who knows how many miscarriages) and was paralyzed and bedridden for 15 years at 29! My mother said she must have caught a cold. Today I think this statement is incredible. From my experience with my girlfriend, I know that after her third child she developed multiple sclerosis. Although warned by her family doctor not to give birth to children due to poor health, this warning was not taken seriously. She spent 25 years in a wheelchair.

The young Mizerl, constantly pregnant and covered with hard work, she was a cook, could not escape her fate. At least through Max I know that the count's family preferred him very much, showered him with gifts and took him on trips. They brought beautiful glass and porcelain items (some from Venice and Egypt) from the trips, all of which were safely stored in chests under the roof of the Höckstrasse house. Everything may have died in the bombing on April 2, 1945, when a bomb fell through the roof and stairwell and caused a lot of destruction. It was practically impossible to reach the roof structure. There was also no time to do so. I survived the Russian invasion of the Capuchin monastery.

There was still a narrow silver soup spoon engraved with “Max”. My mother had him indiscriminately with other useful and useless things, e.g. a tea strainer, caught and taken away. (We only had one backpack full and it was taken away from us at the border.) I had kept Max's spoon for a long time, but I can no longer find it. He would have had And as can also be seen from “Mizerl's” letter, the castle was sold around the turn of the century.7 The Brenneckes moved to Znojmo, around 1903. Grandfather Wuck had lived there in a rented apartment on Marienplatz, between Kolbstrasse and Brandstrasse (German House) .8th

There was a drinking water fountain in front of the house. Grandfather Wuck must have been “well-heeled”. Because he had a tenement building built in Höckstrasse, at that time still used as a vineyard (house No. 12). That was in 1912.9 The Brennecke family from Jaispitz moved into one of the six apartments. There were two rooms, anteroom and kitchen. Heinrich and Margarete, Wilhelm and the sick Mizerl lived in it. The Minna lived with the grandparents Wuck on Marienplatz. The Max has to move out soon. In the neighboring apartment was a Striž family with two sons. One, still a high school student, fell in love with Minna. At that time she was 15. Grandfather Wuck paid this high school student a degree in mathematics after graduating from high school. That was Eduard, he married Minna, they soon moved to Brno and Edi became director of the girls' high school.10 The couple had a daughter, 11 the mother of Helga and Helmut.12 Edi's brother, Oskar, had fallen very young in the First World War.

Nobody could say why Florian Wuck was so wealthy. Allegedly, he or his wife had a white sewing shop in Annagasse in Vienna.13 Apparently, due to the many events, privately and politically, people had forgotten the profession Florian Wuck had, namely how it was in Margarete's birth and baptismal certificate says that he was a castle finder in Znojmo. You do not know whether it was the Znojmo Castle or a noble palace. I will inquire as soon as we come to Znojmo what we are going to do.

Maybe Florian Wuck was adept at money matters. Maybe he had relationships. He was probably known to the count family in Jaispitz and referred Wilhelm Brennecke there. He spoke German like the counts themselves. The castle keeper Wuck must have been interested in being pleased with the count Ugarte-Lovatelli. 14 Or he has great confidence in the W.B. (Wilhelm Brennecke) set that he even gave him his daughter (I only know of one) as a deposit

It is known that serfdom had been abolished by law (Joseph II), but the smaller princes still insisted on various rights here and there, which had a strong impact on the personal sphere of their subordinates. E.g. the jus prima nocte. Maybe it wasn't just extended to the first night. That means here, the woman was young, pretty, and Wilhelm Brennecke should be grateful for his good position. Back then, people were still very caught up in the tradition of being dependent on parents, employers, and society, in all these restrictions that social coexistence had demanded. They were "imprisoned", as Mizerl wrote in their letter. She doesn't just mean it figuratively, she was really imprisoned in her room and had to wait until Wilhelm "came over" to ask him for an address. One wonders why was she locked up? - Always at full moon, grandfather Wilhelm Brennecke, when he already lived in Znojmo, went to the nearby restaurant "Miksch" and came home with a frenzy. Did he want to forget something? Wash away? Why didn't he want Max? Why did he manage to evade his son for life? He didn't love him. Max was paid out with a share in the house inheritance. 16 In 1942 the last installment of the mortgage was repaid. What irony. In 1945 the house belonged to the Czech state.

In addition to the private plight, there were political ones

FAMILY DOCUMENTS

D 001 Archive Hanover, Births 1730, Berkum, Page 17, No 3, Berend Brennecke was born April 6th

D 002 Archive Hanover, Deaths, 1756, Berkum, Page 68, No 1 and 3,Hans Brennecke died Jan. 14th - Heinrich Brennecke died July 9th

D 003 Archive Hanover, Births 1816 Schmedenstedt Page 49, No. 4, Julius Wilhelm Brennecke was born March 1st, 1816

D 004 Archive Hanover, Births 1845 Schmedenstedt Page 46, No. 17, Jürgen Christian Wilhelm Brennecke was born August 5th,1845

D 005 Archive Hanover, Deaths, 1853 Schmedenstedt Page 5, No. 24, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Brennecke was born December 5th, 1853

D 006 Copy from 1938 Birth Certificate Julius Wilhelm Brennecke 1816

D 007 Copy from 1938 Birth Certificate Johanna Dorothea Schridde 1817

D 008 Copy from 1938 Wedding Certificate Julius Wilhelm Brennecke and Johanna Dorothea Schridde 1840

D 009 Copy from 1938 Birth Certificate Jürgen Christian Wilhelm Brennecke 1845

D 010 Death Certificate Theresia Wuck

D 011 Death Certificate Florian Wuck

D 012 Death Certificate Antonie Duschberger

D 013 Birth Certificate Theresia Duschberger

D 001

D 002

D 003

D 004

D 005

D 006

D 007

D 008

D 009

D 010

D 011

D 012

D 013

Images: 26

Brenneckenbrueck Page 1

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Brenneckenbrueck Page 2

Brennecke Name Study Image 4

Brennecke Name Study Image 5

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