Refugee in search of a homeland

The return journey also went smoothly. Back to Berlin east sector, then across to the west sector by tram, and by a locked train through the zone back to Bremen. Along the east zone we could see a lot of Russian military. A very thorough check of everyone at the border town of Marienborn was an omen of things to come. Soon the queues at the border were to get longer and longer, until the Russians closed the border altogether. The blockade of Berlin had begun.

The 3rd of February 1951 could not come early enough for me. My first proper holiday, and all expenses paid!

We left Bremen about 4 pm. The express train took us via Hannover, Würzburg, München to Salzburg, where we arrived at 6.30 am the next morning. The train was crowded, and I remembered many years earlier a similar train ride to the south, only then it was to the Tatry mountains in Poland, whereas now it was to the Austrian Alps. We arrived in Salzburg on a frosty morning and saw plenty of snow on the ground. From there we caught a bus to Obertauern. The hotel was large and first class. Hugo and I shared a room, overlooking the mountains. It looked like a fairy land. Everything completely covered in snow, as far as the eye could see.

We quickly changed into our skiing gear, forgetting all tiredness. Then we went down to the office to make some enquiries about skiing instructions. They had two courses, one for beginners, one for advanced. As Hugo had not skied before, I wanted to keep him company at the beginners course, but he insisted that I go into the advanced course. I was really glad, because we went every day on excursions, whereas Hugo had to practice first on the beginners slope, but not for long. In the second week we were together in the same group. A young lady attached herself to us, she had been in Hugo's course, and we did quite a number of excursions together. In those days there was only one ski lift for the whole valley. We never used it. We had to earn the down hill rides by laboriously climbing up the mountains. But going down hill was a special thrill. On one particular excursion we reached the ridge of the mountain, where a cold wind was blowing. We could see far down below a building. Our instructor pointed it out to us and said: "We are heading to that small cafe there. You are on you own. Ski Heil."

The cafe turned out to be one of those Austrian places, where you could buy anything from a stiff gin to the most delicious Austrian cakes. They called it apres ski Ñ after ski, and our group came shooting down the hill in just a few minutes, the instructor last. The joy of down hill skiing made up for the hard climb, which had taken a couple of hours.

On our last day, a Professor and experienced skier promised to take us to the top of Zehnerkarspitze. There was still heavy fog all around when we set out in the morning. We couldn't see where we were going. The Prof said: "Just follow me, I know the way."

There was nothing else we could do. The climb was steep, the weather freezing, and neither Hugo nor I really enjoyed it. But we kept going.

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