The Life of my grandmother after World War II

My grandmother, Gertrude Lang was born in 1936 in Graz. She was nine years old, when the Soviets and the English were here. Gertrude was the daughter of a businessman and lived in “Kärntnerstraße”. Her family had a difficult life after the war, because they had to work very hard for their food. My grandmother always had to go with her sister to the forest after school, because they needed wood to heat the house. Only one room was heated and this was the kitchen. A lot of windows were broken, because of the bombs, so they put cardboards in front of the windows. Gertrude’s school was four kilometres away, so she had to get up very early in the morning. Sometimes my grandmother and her sister went to school on the hay carriages of the neighbouring farmers, because there were no cars or buses. As a snack for school, Gertrude got a piece of bread and an apple. Her schoolbag was made of paper. At Christmas she got a dress and ten schillings. My grandmother told me that the Soviets were very bad. They plundered a lot and killed a lot of civilians. The English were different. When they were driving with their tanks along “Kärntnerstraße”, they threw lumps of sugar down to the children. A lot of English soldiers lived near Gertrude’s school. When she passed them, she always exchanged the fruits for chocolate.