Biographies

My father fought as a soldier in the Balkan War [see First Balkan War] [4] and later in World War I. It was such a misery with no food in wartime. My mother was left in the shop but there were no goods, no money, and she went bankrupt! The shop was closed and this was when we became very poor. My father had no profession and he didn't know where to start. He was thin and feeble. His participation in wars had brought nothing positive to him. He was in the army supply train and he even caught the Spanish disease - this was a kind of severe influenza, which usually had a lethal outcome in those times. They brought him home and he was saved literally in the last minute. That was the time when an indescribable misery visited our house. When I was one and two years old, we used to be the poorest family in town.

Meine Tante Elisa Geiringer habe ich nicht kennengelernt. Sie starb 1918 an der Spanischen Grippe.

He fought in World War I, but he was dismissed from the army, because he fell ill with the ‘Spanish flu’.