2024-04-23 22:24:47
BOLZANO. “I was born Austrian and I want to die Austrian.” This is the South Tyrolean’s great desire Hermine Orian who turns 105 in the next few days.
Hermine Aloisia Mair was born on 23 April 1919 in Cortaccia. South Tyrol was still Austrian at the time, although already occupied by the Italian army, and only a few months later, with the signing of the Saint Germain agreement, it would officially pass to Italy. Under fascism taught German in clandestine schools, the so-called ‘catacomb schools’. With marriage she became Mrs Orian and then the mother of two children. She today she lives with one of them at Scene, above Merano. For about ten years my great-grandmother has been chasing the dream of becoming Austrian again.
The Tyrolean patriotic movement Andreas Hofer Bundwhich has long adopted the cause, accuses the Austrian government of having “repudiated the last teacher of the ‘catacomb schools'”, by rejecting her request for Austrian citizenship.
2024-04-23 22:24:47