The Russians drained the Hilmteich! – Diepresse.com
Instead of the expected British liberator, the Red Army rolled in on May 9, 1945: The book « Roter Star about Graz » describes everyday life afterwards – and what the soldiers have done so crazy, with petroleum lamps, watches and bicycles.
« Who will occupy us? I don’t think so, » said Hanns Hermann Gießauf on May 8, 1945 in his diary. In the night, however, the first Soviet tanks rumble across the main square. The Red Army comes with horses and carts, with endless columns of load ravages and cannons. With soldiers who are amazed by the residents of the foot lobes instead of socks in their boots. « Dawaj, Dawaj! » Sounds through the streets. Among the frightened and at the same time curious residents, a different word, including the Russian, will soon spread, but pronounced in good Styrian: « sapry ». « You took it, » it means – and becomes a synonym for the big looting.
In the new book « Roter Stern About Graz », the everyday life of the Grazer reads very lively during this only 75 days before the British came – an everyday life that, in addition to all the horrors, for example through rape and robberies, at least in retrospect also has its strange pages. The Austrian historian Barbara Stelzl-Marx, specializing in the Soviet crew and captivity, is heavily relating to what Grazer wrote down and later told. This also includes 80 oral history interviews with people who were children or young people at the time. In addition, she always tells from the fictional perspective of a real person (which is hardly known, however): Johanna Herzog, a young woman who interpreted for the Soviet city commander.
