Gorensky Glass | In front of a shop window in Savnik

When we were little (8)

We didn’t often go from Predtrg to the city. There was a Jager shop in Tevz’s house, right next to Fajfars. Mr. Jager had everything he could get. Only on Sundays did we cross the town to attend mass. At that time, there was no traffic on the “square”, so my grandmother allowed us to run from the church to Savnik by ourselves after mass. There we had to wait for our old mother, who was slower. We always looked in the shop windows and then sat on the stairs and waited attentively. However, one Sunday, we were attracted by the pictures in the window at the entrance of the shop. One of the pictures, which was quite large, delighted us, although we could not understand them. In the picture, a burning house was surrounded by soldiers. I don’t know why we found this picture so funny. We held hands, swayed happily to the beat, and sang loudly:

“We had never laughed so hard before, the bytes were burning and the Germans were running around with their tails waving in the air.”

We repeated the song again, shaking our braids so that they flew back and forth. We also had some listeners. The old mother heard our singing, quickened her pace, took our hands and whispered that we were not allowed to sing that song. We thought the old mother was very mean, so we dragged her down the slope of the Zhanov directly to the kitchen bench. We told the old mother that the old mother was very mean because we sang a song. Then, when we stood on the bench by the window, he sang a little song, but in a slightly different way:

“We’ve never laughed so hard before, the bytes were on fire, the cockroaches were buzzing around, their tails were wagging in the air…”

I didn’t sing as bravely as I had in front of Savnik’s shop. I looked in horror at the tool cabinet where cockroaches lived. I was afraid they would hear me and crawl out of the drawers.

They changed our route from church to home on Sundays. We no longer crossed the Prak River, but always followed the Zanovkrank through the Lechtal and Firzag to the Graben. They never left us alone again and always held our hands when we passed through the town. We had to be as inconspicuous as possible. The Graben, Predtrg and Prettrg meadows were our shelter.

(to be continued)