During the spring, summer and fall of 1942, when the final land apportionment was being worked out by the officials, the farmers tilled and planted the parcels assigned them temporarily by the DAG. This effort was monitored and at harvest time a part of the yield was apportioned to villagers according to need. The rest was hauled away on trucks as state property. For their effort, the “workers” received payment in Reichsmark to purchase other needed staples at the state store in Zirkle. But all were looking toward the allocation of their own property. This started in late fall of 1942 and before the next planting season, most of this was done.

Contrary to the writings of both the farmer and the Reverend describing inequities and injustices in the allocation, similar complaints did not exist in our village. Here there were no Slovene; the entire population was made up of ingathered Gottscheer only. It would seem therefore that our situation was the exception in the settlement program since it does not agree with their reports. But their claims are supported by other available and reliable documentation, making clear that our case was indeed the exception, not the rule.

Little time was needed by the DAG to survey the land since the defining of parcels followed the existing land records. Adjacent parcels were simply combined to satisfy the allocation. This was possible since the village now had only half the number of its prior residents. For this reason most of the settlers who were awarded Type 2 farms received, in addition to the main house and its farming complex, also the adjacent house and its associated buildings. There were no Type l farms in the village and Katharina and the others who had little, if any land in the enclave, were given a Type 6. (see Chapter Veliko Mraševo).

Jacklitsch moved to Cerklje and there into the large house at the main intersection which also included a Gasthaus with a few guest rooms. Members of the DAG stayed there as did the Agricultural Advisor of the Cerklje district whose task it was to instruct the farmers in cultivating their land and vineyards. Father consulted him frequently and they got to know each other well. The public room was larger than the one in Masern and there was an upright piano. The Adviser often played it and his lively and sometimes melancholy tunes had us, the music starved youngsters, listening at the door on the way home from school.
  
Schaffer, the former Fire Chief moved into a villa on the hill, some distance from the village center across the Kostanjevica road. In Masern his had been a very nice house, fully restored after the fire in 1934, but this one was even grander. There no longer being a fire brigade, he now had little reason to come into the village. And the village not having a Gasthaus, he had to get drunk at home or at the Jacklitsch place in Cerklje. But when he came home, his wife Maria again came to Mother to escape his temper as she had done in years past.

- - - -

We moved into our final home in the spring of 1943. Father had accepted a property unit measuring 24 hectares of land which was 3 ha more than he owned at home. Included in the 24 ha were a few hectares of forest and a vineyard of approximately 1.5 hectares in the hills near Krško (Gurkfeld) nearly one hour away.

Our new house was on the main road to the river, just slightly before the triangle in the middle of the village. The buildings of our “Type 2 Farm” were the houses and associated barns and stables of two adjacent former farms combined into one unit and so we now had two of everything. For our residence Father chose the larger and more pleasant house which also needed fewer repairs. It used to belong to a family named Žibert and its house number was 38. In the second house he set up his workshop. And adjacent to that, directly on the triangle, was the house of Katharina.

Across the road, on the second side of the triangle, was the Primosch couple, good friends of our family with their two young sons Josef and Ferdinand. Each soon to be drafted in succession; both of them never came back from the war as was the case with most village men who were drafted into the Wehrmacht or joined the SS.

On the third side of the triangle was the house of Hans Mams and his aging parents who owned the farm but were hardly fit to run it, which in turn kept the 40ish Hans out of the army until early 1945.
 
Johann Krisch and his mother were in the house next to our immediate neighbor on the road away from the river. To have this long time friend so near was not only fortunate for Father but for all of us as well. He was a powerfully built man who helped us a lot and in only a few years was to save my life more than once. He remained a family friend even after his 1943 request to marry Mitzi was denied. His mother had died recently and both parents believed the 45 year Johann Krisch was too old and mainly wanted a replacement pair of hands.  Mitzi was not happy about this decision and tearfully countered that they denied Johann only because they did not want to lose a worker.

- - - -

The repairs on our house and others in the village were being done by forced labor workers from Czechoslovakia. I stopped by to watch them repair our widows and tried to speak to them but they were neither receptive nor friendly. To house them, the DAG had erected a wooden barracks on a field near the little house at the intersection on the Kostanjevica road. This barracks also housed the Slovene forced laborers assigned to the farmers in the fall of 1942 and who lived there until the fall of 1944.
 
Already in the spring of 1942, Father had been given another horse we named Shargo.  From that time forward, he and his oddly matched team of Yiorgo and Shargo were constantly called upon to contribute to the farming effort carried out by the DAG during that year.

Shargo was in all ways a complement to Yiorgo. Smaller in height but stocky in width, he was a good natured draft horse that unhesitatingly followed commands. His smooth and shiny fur was the color of chestnuts, whereas the gray of Yiorgo was being crowded out by ever larger spots of white, his ultimate color.  Contrary to Shargo, Yiorgo had a race horse frame and a temperament to match.  Especially when rested, he needed the sharp voice of Father and even the whip to keep him in line.

During 1942, the DAG had also assigned to us (as they had to the Farmer KR) for temporary care-taking, additional livestock from its stores of cows that had been confiscated from the Slovene. These were now permanently ours with the proviso that the expected daily quota of milk was available for pick up every morning.

And to help run the farm, in the spring of 1943 the DAG assigned to us four workers from the pool of forced laborers housed in the barracks built by the DAG.  Most of these workers were Slovene from the vicinity of Maribor, but some were from Bessarabia.  Two of the Slovene I remember particularly well.

One was Theresika, a young woman of about 20 and a somewhat older young man named Tomaž.  Both were “Windische” for whom this assignment was to be their passport to German citizenship.  Both knew some German but we spoke to them in Slovene when out of hearing of authority. They worked alongside us, ate with us and were treated as part of the family.  But they had to return to the barracks at night.

Mitzi and Theresika became friends and she stayed with us until the fall of 1944. This was not so with Tomaž who kept disappearing but showed up again a few days if not weeks later. When one time he did not return he was replaced, but many of the replacements also disappeared after a while. Not all were cooperative and hard workers in spite of being treated like family.
 
Essential to running the farm, however, were the various pieces of farming machinery Father received from the DAG via the help of the Agricultural Advisor in Cerklje. Among them was a very modern plow with various attachments for planting and harvesting potatoes, a grass mowing machine with special attachments for cutting and bundling the grain, a hay turner, a hay rake and a machine for seeding. All pulled by either Yiorgo or Shargo or both. There was also a large pressure cooker that cooked potatoes and beets for the pigs in a matter of minutes. Such machinery, which so dramatically lightened the labor of farming, was unknown in Masern, if not in the entire enclave.
 
Not all farmers in the village were given such equipment, which caused some to complain to the DAG. But the award to Father could not be challenged because it was based on Himmler’s directive defining agricultural land distribution to the ingathered. The village did, however, receive for communal use a modern steam engine driven threshing machine and a distillery whose output lightened the mood of the ingathered, even if only for brief intervals in the now progressively deteriorating war situation.

- - - -

The equipment received was remarkably easy to use. All could be operated by a single person from a seat on the machine needing only direction to a team of horses pulling it. Levers on the machine next to the seat could engage or disengage various features required by the task. The plow however, had no seat but Father soon fabricated one from which he could operate the levers. At first Mitzi, Mother or I helped him with the horses, but soon even this was not necessary.
 
It was so easy to use that in the spring of 1944 that I, as a slight thirteen year old, did most of the plowing. Not only our fields but also those of some of our neighbors.  Tscherne the teacher came by to find out why I was missing his class so frequently to which Father replied that I was needed on the farm to help with the war effort.

The biggest problem in all this was the temperamental Yiorgo. He would, at least in the beginning, get impatient at being directed by a mere boy and would bolt at any opportunity knowing he could easily free himself from the little hands holding the reins. I soon learned to sense his rising impatience, forcefully apply the whip at the proper moment and behave like the master Yiorgo expected me to be.

But until then he behaved foolishly and his high spirits created a number of dangerous situations for himself, the placid Shargo who joined the frolic and anyone else who stood in the way.

There was the time when he, Shargo and I were plowing a field. Seemingly after an agreement between the two, they tore loose and galloped off, the heavy plow flying back and forth behind them. They were forced to slow down only when the plow blade caught the soft earth sending strings of furrows into the air.  Ultimately the blade dug in deep which overpowered them and brought them to a halt. There was no damage other than the deep and irregular ruts through otherwise geometrical and orderly acreage and fields.
  
At yet another time, when pulling a harrow back and forth on a freshly plowed field with me guiding him from the rear, Yiorgo decided to make for the river to get a drink. I again could not restrain him and had to let go of the reins when he started to run and then gallop. He galloped through the village to get to the river on the street familiar to him, the harrow flying from side to side and up and down behind him. The villagers jumped out of the way but caught up with him when he was getting his fill at the river’s edge. Having had enough, he placidly allowed a neighbor to lead him back to our stable without any resistance, where Father gave him a whipping and forbade any further oats which, supposedly, had encouraged the rebellion.

But one time he became particularly indignant at his boy master who was about to fool him again and in his fury nearly trampled me to death. This happened after a day in the fields when both horses were fed and as was usual every evening, I individually led each from the stable to the watering trough.  Placid Shargo always followed easily, but not Yiorgo.

At times he would tear loose and gallop into the fields behind the barn where he playfully tried to avoid being caught, especially by me.  Someone else usually had to get him. But one evening I came to get him with a handful of oats in a tray which I rustled at him.  He followed me into the stable where he finally got his reward for being obedient.

But only once. When I tried it again, he followed me for a while as I walked toward the stable. However Yiorgo wanted it now not later. Getting very close behind me, he rose up high on his hind legs and before I could run away, he brought his hoofs down on my back, smashing me to the ground.

Fortunately Father, who was nearby and watching, let out a forceful yell which stopped the attack. The excited Yiorgo turned away and raced back into the fields where Johann Krisch finally managed to catch him and bring him back to the stable.  There he received a most brutal whipping from Father.
 
The hit from the iron shod hoof, apart from knocking the breath out of me and from which I recovered quickly, caused no other damage other than a bruise that hurt for a few days. And after this day, Yiorgo received oats only after a hard day’s work had him totally exhausted. But I also learned to lower and make more authoritarian the sound of my commands, use the whip more often and harder and the rebellious behavior ceased altogether. I had gained his respect; we got to know each other better.

- - - -

It was the plowing that finally got me the pocket watch I was promised in 1939 as a confirmation gift.
 
Johann Krisch had a plot that needed plowing. He also had a pocket watch he never used but which I had been admiring for years. It had been in his family for generations; a beautifully engraved silver piece, whose lid snapped open when you pressed the wind up button. Engraved on the inside of the lid were the elaborately carved initials JK, and both the hour and minute hands, as well as the second indicator, were embellished with handsome curlicues to make each reading of time a delight.
 
When Johann asked if I would plow his land, for which he offered the watch as payment, Father readily agreed. Johann was well aware of my admiration for the piece and having no son of his own to pass it to, did not mind parting with this heirloom. And with this act, the outstanding promise of my parents would be made good.
 
The fact that I was to acquire it through my own hard labor, instead of receiving it as the deserved gift was overlooked, but no matter. I was finally getting my watch. It came with a leather strap that could be adjusted for the differing distances between the buttonhole and the breast pocket of a jacket or vest coat worn on festive occasions. However, such occasions were now a thing of the past, but the watch was nevertheless installed properly in my jacket in the closet, ever ready for an important event. In the meanwhile it was frequently retrieved, fondled and shown about as my favorite possession.
 
I owned it for little more than a year. In May of 1945, at the point of a gun, the strap latch was unbuttoned, the watch pulled from the breast pocket of the jacket and taken from me by a grinning Tito Partisan not much older than myself.
 
- - - -

The vineyard was on the southern slopes of Libelj near Krško, about 9 km from our village. With its fully equipped cellar, including press and barrels it had been somewhat neglected during the past year and its vines now needing careful pruning.

Since the vineyard of Johann Krisch was next to ours, we joined forces and the two horses brought the big wagon filled with our workers to Libelj in less than an hour. Under Father’s direction, all of us turned the soil, clipped the shoots, tied them to the wire between the stakes and sprayed the vine with a copper sulfate solution during spring and summer. The knowledge for all this had been imparted to Father by the Agricultural Advisor from Cerklje and by Theresika who also knew about vineyard cultivation, herself coming from the wine region around Ljutomer.  And in the fall of 1943, the vines were laden with bulging grapes.

The vineyard was steep, stone outcroppings in places interrupting the straight lines of the vines. All of us had been warned to stay away from the stones; there were snakes that loved the warm rocks and were vengeful when interrupted in their slumber. And when Theresika let out a yell, we ran to find the crying girl pointing to two bite marks on her leg. Johann quickly found the snake and chopped its head off with a hoe.

I came along on the short ride to Dr. Röthel’s practice in Krško, with Father making the horses gallop wherever possible and Mitzi and Johann Krisch trying to comfort the sobbing Theresika. The doctor gave her a shot after having a look at the snake’s head Johann had brought along and by the time we returned to the vineyard, the swelling ceased to increase. After a few days, it disappeared altogether; the two teeth marks remaining a little longer.

Had this occurred one year later, Theresika would not have been so lucky.
 
After the Allied invasion of mainland Italy in September 1943, we fearlessly watched the endless silvery formations of bombers on their way north, but sought safety outdoors when they were returning later and did target practice with their remaining bombs. On Christmas day 1943, when Dr. Röthel was having dinner with his family, his house received a direct hit, killing them all. The doctor may have believed that on this day such acts would not be performed.
  
Since Dr. Röthel had been the only resident physician in our area, any medical attention from now on was available only from military units temporarily in the area.  Apart from that, the people living in our region were on their own.

Harvesting the grape was a day of hard labor. Helping were Johann, Katharina, her husband Alois and a few others from the village. My back being too young to carry the heavy buckets of grapes uphill, I was tasked to join others in crushing them with bare feet in a large round wooden tub.
 
A part of the juice was taken back home but some was left to ferment in barrels behind the locked doors of the vineyard cellar. Also brought home were the remnants of the crushed grapes, there to ferment in open barrels and distilled at a later time.
 
Unfortunately, later that fall, thieves broke the door of the vineyard cellar and drained the barrels dry. Not only ours but also those of Johann Krisch and many of the others nearby. After that, Father reinforced the door and fabricated an unbreakable locking mechanism to prevent a repeat in the following fall.  Nevertheless, after that most of the unfermented juice was brought home to the safety of our house.

While harvesting the grape was toil only, the extracting of alcohol from the now fermented grapes in the barrels was something else. Later, when most farming was done and idleness stretched the day, the communal distillery was fired up in one of the houses according to a prearranged schedule. When it came to us it was fired up in the large room of the empty house, the extraction of the clear and potent distillate pouring out of a nozzle from dawn to dusk.
 
Again, the Adviser from Cerklje came by with various pointers including on how to control the alcohol content of the emerging distillate. It filled many bottles, most to be sold as brandy to the State cooperative while some others were buried in the grain of granary bins in the attic. I once quietly followed Mother on her trips up the stairs and surprised her taking a swig from one of the bottles.  Red in the face and pointing to her stomach, she explained it was for medicinal purposes.
 
During most of the day, the room contained a half a dozen or so men who came to sample. And later on, many a wife came to retrieve her no longer steady husband who was reluctant to leave, only to return a little later that afternoon.

The still moved from farm to farm, a process that lasted for weeks and eventually a smell of alcohol enveloped the entire village. This was most noticeable as I came home from school or was on the back of Shargo when, after a heavy snowfall, I had to get the mail at the post office in Cerklje.
 
- - - -

While the soil here produced an ample harvest and the grapes a better wine than what could be had at the Jacklitsch inn, our new village was, unfortunately, not surrounded by a forest. No longer were we in the presence of majestic pines and firs that reached for the sky and filtered the sunlight, encouraging the growth of soft green moss on the protruding rocks keeping moist the carpet of needles underfoot, ensuring a cushioned walk in the cool and shady air. No longer present the strong fragrance of the running sap and the buzz of armies of bees in their effort to harvest the nectar oozing from the cones.  This was not pine country.
 
And whatever forest there was, it was on the hill between Cerklje and Veliko Mraševo.  By contrast, all of the higher hills across the river were thickly covered with trees of all kinds. On our side, in addition to a rare conifer, there was only an occasional oak or maple maturing among mostly slender white birch or some other less imposing deciduous tree. And, since the total forest area was small, its allocations were also small.  Ours was approximately one and a half hectares.

The immediate consequence was that we no longer had an unlimited supply of firewood.  While our predecessors were able to get what they needed from across the river, we had to supplement what was available in our allocated parcel with coal from the store in Cerklje. Mother soon learned to light a coal fire with kindling wood in the kitchen stove. But without adequate firewood it was not possible to heat the big oven and she had to learn to bake bread in the kitchen stove. This was in turn welcomed since we no longer had to sleep in a room in which the heat of summer was increased by the corner oven. There was, however, always enough firewood put aside for the winter and the warmth from this oven, to which we were so accustomed.

- - - -

Except for the tasks connected with the vineyard, the job of operating the new and much larger farm was not very different from that in Masern. There was much more arable land to be cultivated, but now we had a team of horses and a lot of labor saving machinery. Before, we used only the land we needed for our own harvest and leased the rest to others in return for their labor. Now we had slave labor workers to help us with all that acreage.
 
Whatever we had produced in Masern we kept for ourselves; cash for the rest of our needs was provided by the ever willing forest silently growing sellable lumber. And if the farm produce became a victim of the whims of nature, more lumber could be cashed in to buy what was lost. Now, our entire livelihood had to come from the sale of the harvest, the forest no longer providing a comforting backup.  In this respect, the former farmers of Masern were less well off.

Here in Veliko Mraševo as formerly in Masern, I as oldest son, was destined to become master of the land when eventually the time came. Until then I and others like myself, would continue to plow the earth and grow a harvest while patiently waiting for our turn as generations of our ancestors had done before. Except that destiny had something quite different in mind for all of us.
 
While much remained the same, the tragic loss to the people of Masern was their centuries old community life. The glue that kept the village of Masern interdependent and constant was absent and could not be duplicated in Veliko Mraševo.  It could also not be duplicated for all the other villages of the former enclave in this stolen land.
 
- - - -

The farmer K.R. writes:

“The cultivation of the farms is progressing well and the resettlers delivered their obligation dutifully in accordance with the regulations. When I was allocated my farm by the DAG, I also received a pair of oxen and a cow. I tilled the ground carefully, but for me and my family there was constantly an uncomfortable feeling to sleep in a house that had been taken away from its rightful owner.

“In the spring of 1943 the deported owner of the house returned from Silesia for a few days vacation in his former homeland. During these few days here he lived with a resident Croatian who had not been deported and indirectly inquired if he could visit and see his house again. I welcomed him and he stayed some two hours with me. He reported that his son had died in Silesia as a consequence of the deportation and that he had brought the body with him for burial in his native land. He was hopeful for an eventual return to his homeland.  I gave him a parcel of provisions for his return journey”.

- - - -

In the fall of 1943 I acquired a new friend and kindred spirit, a much welcomed replacement for my departed schoolmate Josef Tramposch.

Franz was the 15 year old son of the Sturm family that moved into the still empty house on the Kostanjevica road, a short distance from the one Josef and his family had so unexpectedly been taken by the SS. The origin of the Sturm family was Masern number 22, the house in which the grandmother of Franz had died in 1939 and where I had helped Father get the measurements of the corpse he needed to make the coffin. She left the estate to her only son who lived in Austria where he married and had a son Franz and daughter Frederike. As heir, he opted for the estate to be resettled and took possession of the awarded property in late summer of 1943.

As with Josef, Franz and I met in class at Cerklje where I now had a serious competitor and for our teacher a choice of two hands held up high with the answer. We got to know each other on the way to school and back and cemented our friendship at his house, since it was the first on the way back and only a short distance from the little straw decked house at the intersection.
 
During the school year of ‘43/44, I spent much time at the Sturm house, where his parents welcomed me as a good companion for their son. There we jointly did our homework and read books of which his family had more than mine. They also had a radio where I occasionally got the news that I had to repeat when I got home.
  
Apart from that we had little contact, he having no interest in raising rabbits and being forbidden to spear fish. Also, his parents seemed to be protective and kept their children near and consequently, we rarely saw them in the village among the other youngsters. My mother thought this was a mistake; children should be allowed to roam and be among others of their age. Events soon proved how right she was. She also believed that I spent too much time at the Sturm house and discouraged me from going there too frequently.

On the way home from school we lingered while taking out of the way treks through the woods and walk along the stream as I had done with Josef. Only to look for fish; not to spear them. Except that after spotting one, I would return on my own, weapon in hand. And if I caught one, he insisted on hearing the description of the adventure and seeing the spot of my conquest.

- - - -

Not that all walks home were as pastoral or so harmless and serene.

In early fall of ‘44, the Agricultural Advisor living in the Jacklitsch inn at Cerklje suddenly disappeared. Since he was such a well liked man and a great help to Father and many others in the district, everyone was very concerned. I knew him well from his many visits to our village and to our house in particular. We also missed the tunes he sometimes played on the upright piano at the Jacklitsch inn which made us linger at the door on our way home from school.

Prior to his disappearance, he was reported to be despondent and depressed, apparently as the result of a letter he received from home somewhere up north.  One rumor had it that his fiancée, whom he was to marry soon, had left him for someone else.  Another, that she was killed in an air raid.

The mystery of his disappearance ended when, after leaving the school house to go home, we heard that his body had been found in the river and was in the charnel house at the cemetery.
 
Since this was on the way home, I was determined to go see him. Franz was reluctant but then agreed to come with me. The grave diggers in a corner of the cemetery told us not to go there, but we went anyway.

The door of the small house was open with light entering the room through little windows high up on the walls. The fully dressed body was on the boards of two sawhorses, its feet pointing toward the door. Not much to see from here.  Was it really him?  I had to look. Franz did not want to so I went around to the front of the body myself.

It was a mistake; the fish had been at his face.  Much of it was missing, all distinguishing features gone, the hair peeling off the scalp, the protruding bulbous eyes staring at me.
 
How I got out and out of the cemetery I do not remember.  But Franz told me later that I ran and screamed. The horror of that vision stayed not only through the rest of that day and night and the days to follow, but came to me in nightmares for many months to come.

Apparently the news he received had driven him to suicide. They found him after the legs and lower part floated upward, while the upper part of his body remained attached to something in the water. It was his hands that were still clamped on to an underwater root of a willow tree. He was determined to kill himself; he held on to it until he drowned.

No relatives came to claim the body which was buried unceremoniously in the unconsecrated ground of the cemetery.

- - - -

The people of Masern lost their village square, but they gained a river.
 
Gone was the village square and the three inns that welcomed villagers throughout the year; to go there for refreshments, to discuss serious matters or pass on trivial gossip. Or come for a dance on summer Sundays, outside on raised wooden platforms to the harmonica tunes of Josef Primosch. In warm weather, linger in the shade of the linden or rest on its surrounding stone benches, passing idle time. Watch Schaffer exercising his firemen testing their equipment. Take part in the multitude of events connected with the church on the square. To browse for bargains on trinket stands that filled most of the square on the day of the patron saint. To take part in the procession on Easter Sunday, following the brocaded priest under the canopy and the orderly columns of Schaffer’s uniformed fire fighters.  All to the festive peal from the bells in the tower.

All of the above, and much more of what mattered, was left behind. But we youngsters now had a sandy beach by the river.
 
It was not much of a beach, a 15 meter long stretch of small pebbles and sand at the bend of the gently flowing river. The slowly downward sloping road from the village led to it and stopped where the sandy beach began. After the sandy part, the river bent away and picked up speed at the shallower part further down stream.
 
Young and old were drawn to it; the elders bringing the cattle to be watered and to wash away the sticking dust accumulated during the long day. And later, when the water was finally warmed up by the approaching summer, we all went in for a refreshing dip.

The young were there whenever possible. On any day after school or when no longer needed to help with chores, but always on Sunday afternoons when most adults were resting up for another week. This is when we were joined by them as they came to get their feet wet or just watch or sit in the grass along the embankment.

But what seemed pastoral to the eye turned treacherous under water. The sand continued to slope gradually into the darkening river and at about four meters from the edge, a ten year old child would be submerged only to the chest. But a step or two beyond that the ground would drop to a precipitous depth.

This treachery of the river was discovered the first summer when some of the younger men explored the water. I had already been warned of this by the Slovene in the straw covered house at the intersection, cautioning me not to go in very far while urging me to quickly learn to swim. “Everyone living by the river should know that” was his advice.

None of the new residents knew how. Father claimed he learned to swim in the Isonzo, but since he never gave a demonstration, few believed it. And at the Isonzo he still had both legs !

Mother was always reluctant to let me go; the first summer of 1942 only in the company of Mitzi who yelled when I was getting in too deep. Four year old brother Paul was allowed in the water but only while being held by his sister’s hand. The following two summers Mother forever made me promise to stay at the water’s edge and then was visibly relieved when I reappeared. Father was more sanguine; he only made me promise not to go in unless others were there.

In the spring of 1944 we were again eagerly awaiting the day when the water was warm enough to go in.
 
There was much discussion about this on the way home from school and Franz admitted that he and his sister had been forbidden to go near the river.
 
Part of this had to do with the fact that by then, a strip of land along the river’s edge had been mined as was the space on which had been erected a three meter wide barbed wire fence. Except at the road to the beach which had a removable gate to give the villagers access to the river. The gate was closed at night and protected by border guards in a nearby bunker.

The village was informed by the guards where the minefield started; the area to stay clear was marked with stakes. But the parents of Franz and Frederike took no chances and used this as the real reason to keep them away from the river. 
It was clear that this prohibition was agony to Franz especially when school started after the long summer and on the way home, taunts of being a sissy nearly drove him to tears. On such afternoons, I declined to go to his house to do homework; I would rather go to the river.
 
Near the end of that hot summer of 1944, a highly excited Franz announced in class the he might finally be able to join us that afternoon. After school he hurried home while we cut through the woods to get to the river as soon as possible.

- - - -

We were already in the water when he came running and behind the bushes stripped off his clothes.  While doing that we paid him no attention.

Almost immediately after that he was flailing in the water. In his excitement, he had run in, but went beyond the shallow part where he slid off the edge and his feet lost contact with the ground. We all rushed forward to help him, but his frantic struggle propelled him only into still deeper waters where we could no longer reach him since none of us knew how to swim. All of us were stunned; none knew what to do.  At least for a moment.
 
But off to the side was a light, highly unstable and never used canoe which was quickly pulled into the water. With Anton, the younger son of Katharina, kneeling in the tip and the rest of us forming a chain to the older son Albert holding on to the other end, the little boat was pushed out into the deep. By now however, Franz was in even deeper water where even the outstretched hand of Anton could no longer reach him from the tip of the dangerously swaying boat.

And Albert, already at the very edge of the abyss, would not go further nor let loose of the boat, fearing that the now less frequently reemerging Franz would tip the unstable canoe and also cause the drowning of his brother. And when Franz did not surface again, Albert pulled the boat back in.

As I ran toward the village, men were already rushing toward the river in response to my yells for help. One of them stopped me and said I should run to tell the parents.

Both were busy with some other workers in their farmyard threshing wheat.  At first no one paid any attention to me as I stood there all sweaty and exhausted from the long run and afraid to say anything. At least not until I was noticed by Johann Krisch who was among the helpers and asked why was I standing there. And after I stammered that Franz had drowned, he quickly told the parents who dropped their tools and all ran off toward the river. I ran after them but Father stopped me in the village and ordered me to go home; protecting me from yet another set of nightmares.

- - - -

I forgot, or perhaps did not wish to remember how the body was recovered. It was explained to me two decades later by Karel Žibert, the owner of No 38, the house we lived in for just over two years.
  
He remembered the afternoon in early fall of 1944 when he and his friends were frolicking in the water on their side. We often saw them diving off the high and steep embankment there. They became aware of the commotion on the opposite side.  It was the drowning of Franz.
 
They watched our efforts to save him and he recalled how some of the older boys got into a boat to row across, seeing that the desperately struggling body had disappeared. And when they got there they dived into the water, found the body and dragged it ashore. After that, they quickly got back into the boat and returned to their side.

- - - -

The body of Franz was laid out in the Sturm house as was, years ago, that of his grandmother. Except that this time Father and I did not take any measurements as we had done then and he did not make the coffin.  He also did not allow me to go to see the body nor take part in the funeral at the Cerklje cemetery where Franz was buried.

I never went to the Sturm house again, a place where, most likely, I was no longer welcome.

- - - -

In the fall of 1944 we took in our second harvest. Now that the food situation in the Reich had become critical, as was apparent from the empty shelves at the cooperative in Cerklje, an inspector determined the amount of the harvest each farmer had to surrender to the state.  Voluntary offering was no longer an option.

The inspector was Karl Tschinkel, formerly of Masern 12, the oldest of the three brothers Father had been at odds with for many years.  Karl had been given the role of village leader by the Heimatbund, after Franz Jaklitsch was finally called up.  In his mid 40’s, Karl was unmarried and living alone and was, due his extreme nearsightedness not fit to be a soldier. With no one else around, he was assigned the job, a choice welcomed by the villagers who knew that he might not be overly thorough in his assignment.

One of his tasks was to enforce the requirement that the farmers surrender half of the harvested grain and half of livestock such as pigs, calves and chickens to the State cooperative.
 
He did this again in the fall of 1944 when he went from house to house with a ledger in which he made his entries. But the villagers were prepared.  With most of the grain moved from the bins, some of the livestock from the stables and the brandy on the ready, they waited for his arrival.
 
The inspection did not start until he was properly warmed up with a few jiggers. He recorded half of what he was shown and after one more glass from the farmer pretending to be exploited, he moved to the next one along the road. This was repeated as he progressed from house to house which soon made him uncertain on his legs. Somewhere along the way he was given lunch including wine and he partially recovered by taking a short nap. But after he resumed, he no longer desired to perform the inspection and asked the farmer to fill in the numbers himself. When he finally completed his round, he was escorted home and not seen for a few days.

That fall, Karl was particularly lenient when Mother showed him around. He grinned when she showed him the half empty bins, pigsties and stables, as if he knew better. Perhaps he was making up for past misdeeds; the cutting down of Father’s stately pines and the re-assembly, with help from his brothers, of Father’s heavy wagon on the peak of our house when we were away. Nevertheless, the inspection may not have gone so well had Father, instead of Mother, shown him around.

It was rumored, however, that Karl was not as gullible as it appeared.  He enjoyed the deference and attention and in return practiced leniency toward his fellow villagers who were reluctant to part with the products of their toil.  Had the District Chief become aware of Karl’s misdeeds toward the state, he surely would have been severely punished.

In the spring of 1945, little work was done in the fields and there was no attempt to plant another harvest. The forced laborers had not returned to help with the work and the news on the war was frightening. It was now obvious that Germany was going to lose the war and even the much talked about Vergeltungswaffen, the secret revenge weapons, gave us little hope. And since it was now certain we would no longer reap another harvest from this land, why bother.

* * * *



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