Stories of My Aunt Greta: A True Survivor

By Vivian Lerner

My Aunt Greta was a fascinating woman. She was born in Vienna, Austria and wrote stories about her life as a small child growing up in pre-Nazi Austria. She recounts a life full o beautiful memories and experiences until 1939 when everything changed with the Nazi annexation of Austria. Suddenly, families and friends were forced to say goodbye and leave behind their homes, their lives forever changed.
My aunts family found themselves emigrating to Lima, Peru and there she recounts her experiences as a teenager in a strange new world new customs, new language. She tells us with honesty and humor about her attempts to adapt which did not always succeed.
Then as a brazen 21 year-old, she leaves her new adopted home and heads to New York on a scholarship. She shares her stories of her professional life, her friends and many fascinating experiences in Manhattan. Again, with a delightful sense of humor she tells us about her life sometimes sad, sometimes humorous.
But, always, she was a survivor and leaves us with beautiful memories of a life well lived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499033595

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Vivian Lerner.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014911385

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4990-3360-1

   Softcover   978-1-4990-3363-2

   eBook   978-1-4990-3359-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/20/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

625677

CONTENTS

PART 1

Vienna, 1923-1939

About Aunt Johanna

My Mother’s Kitchen

All That Glitters Isn’t Always Gold

My Hungarian Cousins

The Family Novak

The Blue Danube

Edith

Annie And Robert

The Blue Sweater

Lisa

PART 2

lima, 1939-1946

PART 3

New Beginnings

Unexpected Encounter

To Be A Ballerina

A New Job: Did I Cheat?

I Remember Rae

The Wig

Aicha

Closing Notes

In loving memory of my dear Aunt Greta,

whom I admired, respected, and loved

with all my heart.

PART 1

VIENNA, 1923-1939

My dad grew up on a farm in Hungary. He was one of sixteen children—yes, all by the same mother. They were rather poor, but never hungry. They had plenty of potato soup, corn meal, and bread. One would consider this not such a healthy diet, but interestingly enough, my dad was ninety-four when he died with all his own teeth!

As a young man, during World War I, he served in the Austro-Hungarian army. He became a prisoner of war, spending two years in Bessarabia, Russia, where he met my mother. After the war was over, they got married and settled in Vienna, where my dad joined his older brother who had lived in Vienna since the turn of the century and was doing very well in business. After the war years, there was a Great Depression and a lot of poverty. Life was hard. All my parents could afford was a tiny flat—one room and a kitchen—on the fourth floor of a walk-up.

I was born and, a couple of years later, was joined by my little brother, Otto.

I don’t know whether this portion of my story could be considered autobiographical, but my mother in subsequent years told me about what happened so often that in time, I thought I myself remembered it all—of course, that’s not possible as I was only six months old at the time.

My mom took me on my first trip abroad to Novoselitza, a small village in Bessarabia where she was born. It had been part of Russia before WWI, and now it was Romania’s. My mom had been saving pennies from her household money to be able to take me on this trip. She was a bit homesick and also wanted to introduce me to her family and old friends. After a month’s stay in the village, it was time to return to Vienna.

It was a most arduous trip—thirty-six hours, third class on a crowded train. My mom, having to hold me on her lap, fed me, and there were no disposable diapers. I can’t imagine how she managed.

It was late in the evening when finally the train pulled into Vienna’s East Station. Mom had sent a telegram to Dad to let him know when we were arriving. He was to meet us, and she couldn’t wait to get home—she was exhausted. But Dad was not there. My mom sat down on a bench, holding me, and waited and waited. But my dad did not show up, and she could not call him. We had no phone. Finally, she decided to take a taxi home. The driver helped her carry the luggage to the fourth floor. No one answered the bell. Mom opened the door, and to her dismay, not only was Dad not there, the flat was all empty—every stitch of furniture gone. My mom was in shock. She did not know what to think or make of it.

Well, as it later turned out, during our absence, my dad had rented a larger, more comfortable flat on the second floor and, just a few days, before had arranged for the move. It was to be a wonderful surprise on the occasion of our homecoming. In the end, Mom was happy—first of all, she had my dad back and then this new flat … what delight, what luxury!

But how come Dad was not at the station to pick us up? Did he not get my mom’s telegram, which said we would be arriving in Vienna on the twenty-ninth of October?

Oh yes, of course, my dad had received the telegram, and he couldn’t wait for the twenty-ninth to come around, except that the twenty-ninth was to be tomorrow—a slight mistake. We had arrived on the twenty-eighth. A day too early!

ABOUT AUNT JOHANNA

My uncle David—my dad’s older brother—had served in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I. After the war, he returned to Vienna to his family, undernourished, too weak to fight the flu epidemic that was sweeping all of Europe and claiming thousands of lives, including his and that of his oldest daughter, Gina.

His widow was my aunt Johanna. It was now the year 1928, and she and her two daughters were living in Waring, near Vienna, in the same rundown, dilapidated flat she had first moved into after she had married Uncle David. It was an old, broken-down building, a walk-up to the fourth floor, with no running water or heat—and those winters were truly cold, but Aunt Johanna refused to move; she just loved that