"Even though I was an invalid, the Americans took my bicycle..."

"I was severely wounded in 1943 as a soldier in Stalingrad and I've been an invalid ever since. But I was able to get around all right with an old bicycle. That was a real treasure because by then, by the end of the war, almost no one had a bicycle with real tires. Most people were riding on hard rubber strips cut down from old automobile tires and fastened to the bicycle wheel rim with wire. And then, in May of 1945, I wanted to drive up to our pasture to see whether the grass needed to be mowed. Just before I got there, I came upon an American soldier. He jumped out in front of me, pulled out his revolver and took my precious bicycle away. Even though he saw that I could barely walk, he had no pity. It was pure torture to walk the more than 3 kilometers back home. On that particular day I hadn't brought my crutches with me and I didn't meet anyone along the way who could have helped me. The last part of the way, I had to crawl on all fours to get home."

Josef W., born in 1920 as the son of a farmer. He was a soldier in World War II; by the end of the war, he was 25 years old (Boltzmann- Institut/Steinocher-Fonds Interview Archive, Salzburg)