Hide Article Text (OCR)
By JAMES FR. ANTHONY Tale to the third in a series of articles by an Amarillo High School and Yale University graduate who is serving as mess boy on a Swedish freighter in order to geep the world.” James is the son of Mr and Mrs. R. E. Anthony of Clovis, formerly of Amarillo.—THE EDITOR.) Konrad Kitzberger has been at sea for 10 months, having signed on the Floria in Genoa, Italy. Since that time he has become the second cook, Ronnie and I were both born in 1932, although I first tank him to heelbehtly alder. cum pesnsa we ee mrengeersy weeks. About a week after leaving New York we were passing an evening together on the aft deck. Conversation came easily with Ronnie. His home was Vienna, Austria. It had been over a year since he and his friend Willie, who worked in the engine room, had left Vienna. They also had been taken by the urge of travel, and after three months in Italy, they came aboard the Floria. We soon found ourselves com home towns. We list to each other's accounts of our high school years with mutual interest. He seemed in with my accounts of the programs of study and the easy going life of AHS. In his last four years of school he had studied sculpturing in tensively with few outside courses which nevertheless seemed to leave him duly fa miliar with such notables as Goethe, Nietzsche, and Thomas Mann. Where I graduated with over 800 others, he had shared his last four years in this field of work with only 14. After a few more months of seeing the world Ronnie will re turn to his sculpturing in Vienna. Austria and Germany are becom ing more alive to new building and the arts, he pointed out. Before, there was no place for him, but now he has hopes of soon doing architectural sculptur in his own country. asked him if he had ever been a part of Hitler's Youth Movement in his earlier school days. ‘‘Oh yes,”’ he replied, ‘‘for three years.'’ He told me of their rallies and of the two times he saw Hitler. I asked how the peo le feel about Hitler now. He put his left forefinger under his nose, and threw his arm up in a mock, “Heil Hitler!” “Most people make jokes about him now,” he said. I told him how we used to joke with the “Heil Hitler’ salute and the goose-step back in the halls of Wolflin School. “Yes,” he said, “but it was not a joke in Austria then. We were having good times and lots of fun, like you have in America today. But we lost the war, and now those people who followed Hitler call him crazy and make jokes about him. You and I were very young then, so maybe we laugh a little easier.”’ We fell to musing about the war. I pointed out how little I understood at that time. I knew it was bad, but still I thought it exciting. I recalled rationing, but could not remember going without anything. Only those who went to war really knew war. I could not conjure any vivid re membrances, only hazy pictures of momentous events. Ronnie continued the conversa tion, seeming to withdraw him self a bit. “No, I didn't understand it all either, friend, but I remember a jot. I remember the American planes bombing Vienna. At first they bombed only factories, but later they born everything. The planes would fly low and shoot up the streets.” “After it was over it was no better for a long tme. No elec tricity, no gas, and most of all, no food. I learned English by penging American soldiers for food.ost of them were very to us, but I remember one merican taking a small bag of salt pork from one of my friends, kicking it into the street and stepping on it for no reas on. I know the Germans did many bad things, but I saw bad things, too, my friend. I lost my parents after the war ended. I never saw my mother eat in those last days. She gave everything to me and my brothers. They both died within four months of each other, but it was the war that killed them.” There was no bitterness in Ronnie, only a quiet recollection of what war was to him. Then in a lighter tone, “I learned that there are good and bad people everywhere. There are a lot of good Russians, too, although most Americans cannot believe it now. I learned that nothing is all good or all bad. “Maybe it is good I don’t for . Maybe if others don’t forget what it was like, we won't have a war for a while. if they do...” We sat silently for a while, thinking a bit of both those earlier years and those to come. Soon we decided it was late, so we went below together. The Floria continued on its way to Brazil.
Newspaper Details
Amarillo Daily News
Amarillo, Texas, US
Thu, Aug 19, 1954
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
James A.
USA 17 Jun 2026
Other Publications Near Amarillo, Texas
Amarillo Sunday News Globe
Amarillo Globe News
Amarillo News Globe
Amarillo Daily News
Amarillo Globe
