European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Post-war times, memorial policies, “traitors”

The main Nazis, they hid away.

Back then, when the partisans were there.

Some of them came back out of their holes the end of May

and for a while they were like the Stasi (secret police of East Germany).

Again, as time went on they showed themselves as Nazis.

They believed us to be the betrayers.

Even today the word ‘betrayer’ or ‘betrayer of freedom’ sticks to us.

How can an Austrian or authority say ‘betrayer’?

In those days when the roll call came: “Let’s go against fascism, for Austria” – where were the people?

In Stalingrad, did they fight for Austria?

The ways are so different and we will never agree about what happened.

We celebrate the big party and the others are the losers.

For the ones who were members of the German ‘Wehrmacht’,

the governor and authorities always lay down wreaths on All Saint’s Day.

But never in front of a partisan’s grave.

There are 53 monuments and graves of the partisans in Carinthia.

Nobody ever put a wreath down – nobody, officially.

And there were 50.000 deserters who were shot in Germany.

Nobody remembers them either, as if there hadn’t been any.