Memories of a child growing up in 1920s Vienna

by Marlene Heloise Oeffinger

We weren’t always poor.

I remember when I was little we lived in a nice apartment. It was big. There were so many places to hide and play, and Mama never minded if I ran through the rooms. My father was with us more often back then, and we had dinner each evening below the electrical chandelier around the big dining table. I needed three thick pillows to sit on to see my plate.

I don’t really know when it all changed. I was still quite young, maybe four, but Papa wasn’t around as much and when he was, I was put in my room. But I heard them anyway. The loud voices, the tears. Him leaving. Always him leaving. Even when my younger sister, Anna, was born, he never stayed home anymore. And then, one day, Mama told me we would live somewhere else from now on. That was all she said about it. We packed our belongings, took my sister and left. I never saw that apartment again.

Our new life was different. I still had a room but it was dark and small. It smelled musty and sometimes a little rancid because of the oil lamp I used for lighting to do my homework in the evenings. My sister shared a room with my mother. The biggest change, and there were many, was that Mama worked. Each morning she went out in her white and blue striped starched dress, and each night she would return, dress wrinkled, stained and damp. She worked as a laundress in a nearby school, washing uniforms, bed and table linens in their basement, all day long. Another change was that I had to do the grocery shopping on my way back from school. I hated it. I had never quite enough money to pay for it all. The grocer always cursed me out, shouting I should tell my mother to come and see him. But she never did. So I stopped telling her. The grocer’s wife was kinder. She let me bring the missing money the next time and never scolded me for not having enough. There was nothing I could have done anyway.

I hated our new life. Even more after the times I got a glimpse of our old one. Sometimes Mama would dress Anna and me in nice frilly clothes that were hidden away all other days, and we would take a carriage to the Palais in the city. A well-dressed stern-looking older woman would meet us in a room hung with rich velvety curtains and crystal chandeliers. The sunlight would sparkle on the ornate golden wall paint. She would ask about my sister and me, our progress. How was I doing in school? How well could I read and write? were things she asked each and every time. On occasion she would ask me to read to her, which I loved. Reading was one of favorite things, even as a child. It still is. But Mama hated my books, my passion for reading, and I had to hide most of them.

The readings were the only nice thing about those visits to the Palais. That and the food we always got to eat. Each time, after Anna and I were sufficiently inspected, we were sent outside to wait and a young maid would bring platters full of sandwiches and cookies, and goblets filled with milk. We ate, sitting patiently outside the heavy wooden door that hid my mother and the stern woman away. And each time, a short while later, my mother would emerge from behind that heavy door, eyes rimmed red, shoulders hunched, looking a little more defeated. And each time we would go back to the apartment building in Ottakring, where the streets were lined with row upon row of decrepit tenement blocks, each housing people just as poor as we were now.

But at least for a short while after each visit, I would have enough money to pay the grocer.