In June, I visited the places where my mother’s father, Hubert Saurwein, founded and led the armed resistance against Hitler in a long and narrow valley of Austria, the Oetz valley, in the region of Northern Tyrol. He was nicknamed the Tito of the Oetz Valley.
He was a locomotive engineer, a committed Catholic, and a union member, with a strong believe in freedom and justice and when Nazism penetrated Austria, and people were forced to practice the Nazi salute, stretching high the arm and their hand, my grandfather like many others understood that a dangerous, dark and illiberal era was infiltrating their society. Continue reading
Lessons from my grandfather
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