My father immigrated here after the Anschluss in Austria in 1938. His older brother, “John” followed soon after. Dad enlisted in early ‘42, served in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Was wounded and captured in Northern Italy. Was in a POW camp not far from his home village. He never spoke of his war time experiences. What we learned came afterwards. Uncle John served in the Merchant Marine, loss 4 ships between ‘42-‘45. He too never spoke of his war time. Another uncle, Matthias, was with the German Afrika Korps, or so the family history stories go. He did not survive the war. My mother immigrated here with her family in 1932. She was six. They came from a village not far from my father’s village. She worked in a defense plant late in the war. Her father, my grandfather, was a WWI veteran who served in the Austro-Hungarian Navy as a “Marine” - Naval infantry- in the Julian Alps campaign, the “White War”. During WWII, he was an Air Raid Warden. They are all gone now but in their way, they were part of that Greatest Generation.
