Trude Meller is an Austrian lady who lived out her married life in England with her Yugoslavian husband – she spoke to Edges about her experiences of a life which has seen many changes: - I was born between the two world wars, in 1925. I don’t believe that the aftermath of the First World War affected Austrians as much as it did the British and the French. However the depression soon hit Europe and when I was five years old, my father lost his job. Unemployment in those days meant a swift decent from affluence to abject poverty and so from having a good life, we were reduced to begging for bits of food from convents etc. My brother and I struggled along like this with my parents until I was fourteen. In 1939, Hitler took over and although he was hated generally, he did insist on people being made to work, even if it was for a pittance. My Father, who was a joiner, was re-employed and I was sent on a youth scheme to work in a big house for a year, earning 5 shillings a month which did not even buy a pair of stockings! However, we were fed. Soon the rations hit us, as they did everywhere else. We were aware of anti-Semitism; persecution aimed at local Jews but we had absolutely no idea that concentration camps existed. I did not find out about the holocaust until much later when I was in England and I was so shocked to discover this had been going on so close to home. It took me a long time to learn to live with the knowledge of such horror. Of course nowadays with T.V etc. it’s hard to understand how limited news and communications were in those days. It was so much easier then for people in power to influence what we got to know and what we were kept in the dark about. Most Austrians were anti-nazi but there were some supporters; you had to be constantly looking over your shoulder and very careful whom you trusted. It was a time of fear and unease. One day our house was bombed, I was in the cellar and even the doors blew out, yet I was saved- Austria was, and still is quite a Catholic country. During the war there was a certain amount of desecration of the church. I remember our youth centre being used as a place for giving out ration cards – All the prayer books and pictures were burned. After the war, I met my husband. He was a Yugoslavian who felt that Austria was not for foreigners so we moved to England, arriving here without a word of English! England wanted weavers, which is what I did in Preston, then a weaving shed in Blackburn. I also worked at Queen’s Park Hospital whilst also rearing six children! I’ve always loved living here, I’ve met remarkably little prejudice. I think I’ve been very lucky. I wonder why there is so much prejudice now. We don’t seem to have learned from the horrors of the nazi era and the wars. Family life used to be such an anchor point and gave you solid foundations for life. Now, the elderly are not given the status they used to have – The young are seemingly quite Godless – No God, no family structures: How do they know where they belong? They are spoilt for many things, especially education, but I wonder if they make full use of it? Computers appear to be turning us all into robots that have no time for other robots except the T.V! So much materialism, information technology, yet so little communication skill; So much, yet so little. Although, we had to beg in my childhood, there were always neighbours and other people willing to reach out with basic human warmth. But I’m an optimistic person and believe in making the best of any situation; I also believe that God is in all our lives and we need to be grateful for that and include him in everything. |
