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IN THIS ISSUE

• We come to the end of Les Davison´s story of his wartime escape
• Here is the fourth instalment of Ernest Blaschke´s story about Vienna
• Jack Peaker suggests some of the things you should never say to women
• Gerrit de Leeuw explains the continuation of an old custom
• Shirley Conlon forwards an important warning
• Ex-teachers will find these observations all too familiar
• Bruce Galway and Jack Peaker suggest interesting websites

Les Davison wraps up his story of their daring escape from the Germans in his

WARTIME MEMORIES

Before we knew it we could see the glimmerings of dawn and decided that as we didn´t know for sure that we were safely in Allied territory, we had better find a place to hide. This had been a well-populated area and we noticed that we had passed quite a few abandoned farms, so we didn´t have any problem finding a place to take cover. As it happened, we were quite close to a small village which I found out after the war was called Zetten. We picked the biggest house, which was two-storey red brick, and made our way up to the second floor, as the water was half-way up the walls of the downstairs rooms. All the rooms had been emptied of furniture and of the three bedrooms upstairs two were empty. However, the third bedroom was locked and it didn´t take much imagination to figure out that this was the place where all the house furnishings had been stored. Although we knew that this was a home of the same Dutch people who had risked their lives to help us, we broke into the room and just hoped that they would forgive us in view of the circumstances.

The bedroom was stacked to the ceiling with the belongings of the occupants and also contained a fireplace. As we were soaking wet and quite cold, we went through all the cupboards and drawers to see what was available. Vic found a man"s suit but all I could find was a lady´s tweed skirt and jacket. We stripped off and dried ourselves on some bedsheets we had found and decided that if we could get Vic´s cigarette lighter to light we would make a fire in the fireplace and dry our uniforms. In the event we didn´t need Vic´s lighter as we found some matches and used some underwear as kindling to get a fire going with smashed furniture.

It was getting quite light now, about 6.30 a.m. when I noticed there was a harmonium piled among the furniture. Vic and I wrestled it out to a relatively clear space and I started to play. I could play an accordian so the harmonium wasn´t much different. You might think that this was quite risky, but we were pretty confident that we were in Allied territory and we hoped it might bring our presence to someone´s attention.

After about 10 minutes Vic signalled to me to stop playing as he thought he had heard something. Sure enough, we could hear a motor. In order for you to appreciate the situation, here we were, two British paratroopers, one dressed in a business suit and the other in a lady´s two-piece, on the top floor of a house with three feet of water in it, in a small village in no-man´s land. Nothing but water as far as we could see and the strains of "Roll out the barrel" coming from an old foot pump harmonium. It´s hilarious when you think about it.

I rushed over to the window where Vic was and we both listened with some trepidation to what was obviously a motor vehicle. The question in our minds was what kind of vehicle would be operating in three feet of water and, secondly, was it ours or theirs? About ten seconds later we got our answer. An Allied D.U.K.W. (an amphibious jeep) came round the corner with ten or so Canadians aboard. We started shouting, "Over here! Over here!" and the D.U.K.W. quickly made a beeline for us. All the Canadians had their rifles trained on us, so we put up our hands and waited until they got to the house. They nudged the craft right up to the wall of the house directly under the bedroom window and the captain in charge of the patrol asked us who we were. We told him, in as few words as possible, who we were, how we had got there and why we were dressed in this fashion. His reply was, "Well, get your things and we´ll take you to headquarters in Nijmegen and we will soon see who you are."

When we got to Nijmegen we were allowed to take a shower and given some denim fatiques to wear until they decided what to do with us. After a good breakfast of Spam and eggs, we were taken into separate rooms. A Canadian captain, apparently an intelligence officer, then asked me to go over my whole story, while a male stenographer took it all down. I told him everything from the minute I parachuted into Wolfheze, our dropping zone, until that morning. The only thing I left out were the names of the Dutch people. All this took about two hours and I noticed from time to time, the captain shaking his head, apparently in wonderment. When I had finished I was left in the room, under guard, for some considerable time. I can only assume that the two interrogators were comparing notes to see if there were any discrepancies in our stories.

Eventually the captain came back, dismissed the guard and told me he was satisfied with my story. He gave me an authorization to go to the quartermaster´s store and get a complete new issue of military clothing. He also said that Vic and I would be going by transport first thing the next day to Brussels and flown home from there to Northolt Park aerodrome.

When we arrived in the U.K. we were met by a provost sergeant, who gave us train vouchers to our respective homes and told us that we had been granted three months´ leave. Apparently this was mandatory for all returning prisoners. We were also given ten pounds each against our back pay.

Naturally we both wanted to inform our relatives of our return as we knew that we would have been posted "missing in action". I found a pay phone and rang the neighbour of my sister-in-law and asked her if she would please go next door and bring my sister-in-law to the phone. The neighbour didn´t ask who was calling and when my relative said, "Hello," I said, "Hi, Annie! It´s Les!" She said, "Les who?" I said "your brother-in-law, Les Davison. I just got back from Holland." Annie said, "Oh my God, we all thought you were dead." I said I wouldn´t try to explain now on the long distance phone but would she please tell my Mother and everyone in the family that I was home and would be seeing them the next day.

So ended one of the most exciting periods of my life, and as you can see by the foregoing story, one that is etched into my mind even after all these years.

The Russian troops have just occupied Vienna in Ernest Blaschke´s story of

LIFE IN VIENNA DURING AND AFTER WW II

We lived in a building with 15 apartments and about 40 residents. We occupied two of the apartments - my family lived in one and my father, a physician, used the second one on the same floor as his offices.

Soon a routine developed regarding the dealings with the occupation troops. First of all, the main door to the building was always kept locked. Anybody who went in or out had to unlock and lock the main door. A few times each day, Russian soldiers would come around in groups of two or three and knock on the door with their rifles. When it seemed that they meant to come in, about 10 of the residents would meet them at the door. There was always safety in numbers. Women were afraid of being raped, and men between 20 and 50 were afraid they might be taken away and interrogated. In fact, neither of these things ever happened in our immediate vicinity.

Nevertheless, the two or three soldiers at the door were always mildly uncomfortable being confronted by so many people. They ususally insisted on searching the apartments, saying "Deutsch soldaten?" The standard answer was, "Nix soldaten." Both were a sort of "pidgin German", indicating that they were ostensibly there to look for German soldiers in hiding, with the reply that no soldiers were here. In their "search for soldiers" they paid particular attention to chests of drawers and the inside of coal stoves (apparently a hiding place for valuables that many thought was safe). They generally took with them whatever took their fancy. We placed a large red cross on our apartment door and at times this caused one or the other "visiting" soldiers to ask for a consultation, after which they left. When leaving, there were always about 10 people accompanying them to the main door, which was again locked behind them.

We soon found out that the soldiers´ bosses were not so much their officers but rather "political comissars" who accompanied the army. They were also in uniform but easily distinguishable from soldiers (I think they had a red stripe on their caps, but I am not sure of my recollection on this). In any event, they were the real authorities.

Let me relate a couple of instances of what happened: Just as I was leaving my building, a Russian soldier on a bicycle came up to me, quickly handed me the bike and walked away. A minute later a comissar came around the corner. The soldier was very smart getting rid of the bike as he saw him approaching. At one other time, as I watched it from my window, a Russian soldier came out of a grocery across the street with some loot in his arms. A comissar saw him, never spoke to him, just drew his pistol and shot him dead on the spot.

Yet at other times, you saw Russian soldiers, mostly of Asian origin (with Mongolian features) who were wobbling around on bicycles, obviously just learning to ride them, with no interference from anyone.

So much for personal experiences. The political state of affairs was as follows: There was no source of information, no radio or newspapers, so rumours were rampant. On occasion the Russian occupation troops would post some German language news bulletins on billboards. This is how we learned of several important events: The end of the war, the taking over of Truman as American president, and the fact that Austria was to be occupied by Russian, British, French, and American forces, depending on the geographic location. Vienna itself was to be divided also into four occupation zones.

At first civilians didn´t really believe that the Russians would give up part of the city, but one day a Russian order was publicized that all doors of all apartment buildings were to be kept unlocked during the day on penalty of death. This seemed to be a sure sign that the Russians wanted to dispel the bad image of a local population locking themselves in, when the first Allied troops arrived in town. I don´t think very many people paid too much attention to the order.

Russian soldiers were basically very humane and would not carry out on their threats, especially if there was widespread disregard of the order. Under German occupation there was no question that everyone would have obeyed instantly.

Indeed, a few days later Allied troops arrived and took over in different parts of the city. We happened to be in the British sector, but it made little difference where in Vienna you lived, since there was none of the divisions that existed in Berlin and Germany. I will deal with the reasons why this did not come about in Austria in the next instalment.

To be continued.

Jack Peaker suggests these are the

THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER SAY

to a woman during an argument

10- Don´t you have some laundry to do or something??
9- Aww, you are so cute when you get all ticked off.?
8- You´re just upset because your a** is beginning to spread.?
7- Wait a minute - I get it. What time of the month is it??
6- You´re sure you don´t want to consult the great Oprah on this one??
5- Sorry, I was just picturing you naked.?
4- Whoa, time out. Football is on.?
3- Looks like someone had an extra bowl of bitch flakes this morning!?
2- Is there any way we can do this via e-mail??
1- Who are you kidding? We both know that thing ain´t loaded.

Gerrit de Leeuw forwards this story about

SMART WOMEN

Barbara Walters of Television´s 20/20 did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.??

Some time later she returned to Kabul and observed that women still walked behind their husbands. From Ms. Walter´s vantage point, despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seemed to walk even further back behind their husbands and were happy to maintain the old custom.??

Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghan women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?"??

The woman looked Ms. Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation said, "Land mines."

Moral of the story: Behind every man is a smart woman.

Shirley Conlon forwards this

TICK WARNING!

I hate it when people forward bogus warnings, and I have even done it myself a couple times unintentionally ... but this one is real, and it´s important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list.

If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warm weather and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! THIS IS A SCAM!! They only want to see you naked.

I wish I´d gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid....

Karen

YOU MIGHT BE A SCHOOL EMPLOYEE IF ...

... you believe the playground should be equipped with Ritalin salt lick;

... you want to slap the next person who says, "Must be nice to work 8 to 3:30 and have summers off";

... it is difficult to name your own child because there´s no name you can come up with that doesn´t bring high blood pressure as it is uttered;

... you can tell it´s a full moon or if it going to rain, snow, hail, anything, without ever looking outside;

... you believe, "shallow gene pool" should have its own box on a report card;

... you believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, "Boy, the kids sure are mellow today.";

... when out in public, you feel the urge to snap your fingers at children you do not know and correct their behaviour;

... you have no social life between August and June;

... you think people should have a government permit before being allowed to reproduce;

... you wonder how some parents MANAGED to reproduce;

... you laugh uncontrollably when people refer to the staff room as the "lounge";

... you encourage an obnoxious parent to check into private schools or home schooling and are willing to donate the UHAUL boxes should they decided to move out of district;

... you think caffeine should be available in intravenous form;

... you can´t imagine how the PTA could think that covering your students´ chairs with Velcro and then requiring uniforms made out of the corresponding Velcro could ever be misunderstood by the public;

... meeting a child´s parent instantly answers the question, "Why is this kid like this?";

... you would choose a mammogram over a parent conference;

... you think someone should invent antibacterial pencils and crayons and desks and chairs for that matter;

... the words "I have university debt for this?" have ever come out of your mouth.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Bruce Galway suggests this site for people who like playing Trivia. Click on a square to get a question. Answer it correctly and get an X in the square; if you´re wrong you get a big 0. To win you must have three Xs in a row.

Go go http://www.animaxinteractive.com/banana/Games/tictactoe.html

Jack Peaker forwards this url for a video of what engineers with far too much time on their hands come up with:

http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/player.swf?b=10&l=197&u=ILLUMllSOOAvIF//P_LxP92A42lCHCeeWCejXnHAS/c

You may also read this newsletter online at http://members.shaw.ca/vjsansum/

"If you know you´re going to look back on today and laugh, you might as well laugh now." - Source Unknown