"From the Nazis, we never heard anything positive about the Americans"

"The only thing we heard was that the Americans are nasty people. We never heard anything positive about the Americans - actually, only terrible things. And then, we were so relieved to see that at least they cooked normally. Right away, the soldiers set up a field kitchen down on the square in our neighborhood and we caught a whiff of the good food they were cooking. It wasn't long before the first curious children were making their way down to the Jeeps to see what was going on. And they got something to eat too."

Johanna M., born 1929. She was 16 years old at the end of the war. (Boltzmann-Institut /Steinocher-Fonds Interview Archive, Salzburg)