Figure 1.--

I especially remember the time I lived in Austria during 1953-55. I have many fond memories from that country. It's quite easy to remember when one looks again photos and film.

Clothes

In Wiena (Vienna) they had a official service which used a camera 16mm I saw them 20 years ago at the SCA some period of 1952-1954 I had been altarboy (Chorknaben). We wore (eine Albe), a sort long dress with a rope at the waist. I remenber very well of my admiration for the singerboys--Vienna Choir Boys. People called them Sängerknaben in Austria. At this time they wore sailor suit blue long pants, Some times they came at Stefandom [I'm not sure what this is.]. Concerning the leather pants (lederhosen). There were not many Austrian boys wearing lederhosen when I was in Vienna during the early 1950s. The boys I knew that wore lederhosen called them "Tyro'kluft". Most Austria boys wore short pants. On Sunday they often wore a typical jacket grey/green with short pants and keesocks.

Occupied Austria

As a French boy living in Austria, I observed but was not fully aware of some differences. We children were very affraid of Soviets. In fact half of Austria was occupied by the Sovierts until 1955. This was somewhat strange to me becaise at the time on France, people were still more afraid of the Germans than the Soviets. Also I learned on Austria that certain topics concerning the War couldn't be freely discussed.

Gothic Writing

Normaly in Austria before about 1940, people wrote with Gothic script. Only a few gentlemen of culture, wrote with the Latin letters before the 1930s. [HBC note: The NAZIs were propents of Gothic script. After the War began and Germany conquered most of Western Europe, they found that the conquered people could not read the Gothic script, so they decided to do away with it.] Austria by the 1950s when I went to school there had changed. The children in the school were only authorised to use the Latin writing, but all the adults could read and write Gothic script. Normaly about 1955, when I was in an Austrian school, we could use a pen for our own notes, but it was compulsory tho write the work given to the teacher with a feather pen ( Plume in french ) and we said: Federhalter greifen." I learned while I was in Austrai to read and write Gothic writting. So later when I was teenager in France, I took the commonly wrote my personal notes in Gothic script. This way nobody could understand what I was writing.

Austrian School

I remember that in the school my classmates knew that I was french, but I was treated just like them. I remember a friend was interrested in the French language. I saw again in 1967 and was very happy, but he had forgoten all his French. There were some differences as to how French and Austrain boys dressed at school.

Aalain