(Essay) Education for a Girl in Bozen 1930’s by Claire French Ph.D.

A translated excerpt from the author’s book: Meine verkehrte Welt: von Bozen nach Australien

Since the day of my birth my father had decided that I would remain his only child. If I had been born in this hell hole of an industrial town I must get to know his homeland and some day take over his family’s property at Bozen (Bolzano) in South Tyrol, now the Italian Provincia di Bolzano. Besides he deemed that an education in a small Bavarian township was not good enough for his daughter: he was an Italian citizen and Italian civil law followed the Latin jus sanguinis, that is the Law of the Father. This meant that I was an Italian citizen by birth and under the Fascist regime the ownership of real estate made it necessary to speak Italian. Under these circumstances it seemed to be inevitable to spend some of my school years at a boarding school in Italy. My mother was heartbroken at the thought to send me so far way and to entrust my education to Catholic nuns. But she understood that a girl needed a good schooling if she did not want to be dependent on a husband. She saw the misery of the women working in factories and of women who had been married for their dowry, and as young as I was I could see it too. “When I grow up I shall not get married.” I said to Mutti. “That won’t be necessary.” She answered. Once I had asked Grandfather if all girls had to marry. He had laughed and said that no obligation was needed, as they never could get a husband quick enough. I did not believe him. There was Fraeulein Meyer, a hunchback seamstress, who came to us periodically to sew and alter our cloths and she was not married. I asked Mutti about marriage. She said that it was a wonderful thing to have a baby, and for this a husband was necessary. But if I promised to work hard she would help me to get a decent job, like the lady who wrote the English letters for Rosenthal. Nevertheless she insisted that apart from my school work I would also have to learn everything that a good housewife must know. She would not like to hear that I did not know how to clean, cook and sew, like Mrs. B. I knew what she meant. In those years women with secondary education were called “Blue Stockings” after an English Ladies’ Club and they were the object of much ridicule. I must not become one of them.

Grandfather of course was against any form of higher education for girls. He did not know what that should be good for. “Just let them learn how to scrub and clean and do the washing” and “Girls who can whistle and hens which can crow should get their necks wrung while they are young”: this was Grandfather’s slogan and he never stopped quoting it. I am sorry to say that initially Vati tended to agree. Initially he could not understand that women needed to learn anything beside cooking, knitting and sewing, not to forget how to darn socks and sew on buttons. His mother, a lady in her seventies, was still knitting woollen stockings and socks for the whole family. She did not read the Bible but the Yearly Almanac of the City of Bozen. Like all the women of her standing she went to Mass on Sunday mornings and to Rosary on Sunday afternoon. What else did a woman need for Eternal Salvation.

My poor mother had been yearning all her life for a better education. In vain she had implored her father to let her learn French like her cousin Lorenz Fluegel, who had grown up at Metz in Lorraine. Now she was determined to give her daughter what had been denied to her, and for this she was prepared to make every sacrifice. Soon Vati also came to see it her way.

During our yearly holyday at Bozen my parents had made enquiries about a suitable boarding school for me. But they drew a blank. At Bozen there was the “Elisabethinum” for orphan girls and at Meran there was the School of the English Ladies, also called Institute of Our Lady of Zion. The former was unsuitable for me and the latter too expensive for my father’s income. The daughters of the old Austrian aristocracy had governesses who taught them French and all the accomplishments necessary for their status. Vati had hoped that the nuns of the Franciscan Tertiary Order had a boarding school for girls. But the nuns had given up their boarding facility and divided their energies between running a hospital and a day school for girls for the first five grades. Their former boarding facility was now reserved for the novices of their Order. My parents were disappointed. Then Vati asked his sister Clara and her husband Othmar Leitner if they would take me in fosterage. Clara had no children of her own and I suspect she only agreed because she did not trust Mutti to give me a good Catholic education. She was also my godmother and I never called her Aunt Clara, but Patin (godmother) as was the local custom. Her husband, Uncle Othmar, saw the possibility of an extra income and a cheap house hold help. His villa in the Via Castel Roncolo was only a short walk from the private girls’ school of the Franciscan nuns, Scuola Santa Maria, which was frequented by the daughters of the German speaking middle class and had an excellent reputation. …

In Italy the school year starts after the long summer vacation on the 1^st of October and finishes on the Day of St. Peter and Paul on the 29^th of June. Our neighbours at Selb were all agog when my parents took me and my copious luggage to the whistle stop station of Selb Nordbahnhof, and put me into the little steam train for the first leg of my journey to Italy. As in this country children were not allowed to travel alone, and Vati had not been able to secure a few weeks’ leave, Mutti was to accompany me and stay at Bozen until I had settled into my new environment. Although Grandfather and Tante Lies lived just around the corner, they had not come to see me off. But it is also possible that they were not told of my departure. I was nine years old.

By now I had made the journey south often enough and was not very excited. Yet on the Brenner Pass we ran into trouble with the Italian border police. Mutti had bought me a typical German students’ cap, which was worn by high school students to identify their school and grade. Although I was initially only to frequent an elementary school, in her ignorance she had bought me the blue cap for girl high schools with a ribbon in gold and black prescribed for the third grade. Now it happened that gold and black were also the Austrian imperial colours, and this aroused the suspicion of the maresciallo. We had to leave the train and follow him to his office where my poor mother was subjected to a lengthy interrogation. Fortunately she could convince the border guards that she was not a spy or a revolutionary but just a proud, overambitious mum. The other travellers wondered about the long holdup, but then one was used to such chicaneries in post war Europe …

Our teachers, the Franciscan nuns, were beautiful ladies, who carried their wimples with grace and dignity, most of all Sister Myriam, the Principal. Like all the teaching nuns she was bilingual, and when she was talking to Mutti she spoke a flawless German with a charming Italian accent. … Yet in spite of all her charm and elegance she did not compare with my class teacher, Suora Mercedes, the most beautiful woman I have ever met. None of the Hollywood stars of the time could be compared with her. Without any makeup her complexion was like pink rose petals. Her brown eyes under long dark lashes shone with soulful luminosity and when she walked her feet did not seem to touch the ground. Her whole person radiated motherly love for her pupils and she reminded me of those images of Our Lady one can see in old churches. Whether she spoke Italian or German her Tyrolean accent gave her voice warmth and her whole personality showed love and good will towards everyone. Of all the women I have ever met she could compare only with my mother, and I immediately knew that I would be able to bear my separation from home without too much heartache…

Beside Sr. Myriam and Sr. Mercedes there were other teaching nuns I admired. There was Suora Angelica, our teacher in Catechism and Bible studies. In spite of Mussolini’s anti-German policy which prescribed strictly Italian speaking in all the schools of this German speaking province, the Italian Concordat with the Vatican provided that children of Italian citizenship but German speaking background had to receive their religious instruction in German. This provision enabled Sr. Angelica to combine her Bible classes with the prohibited German lessons, a form of tuition known in South Tyrol as Katakombenschule, which had much in common with the clandestine hedge schools of Ireland. The only person who may have objected to it was our Fascist sports teacher. He came to the school daily in his Fascist uniform and taught in the palestra or gym which was situated in the basement of the building. But he never found out about Sr.Angelica’s clandestine German teaching camouflaged as catechism.

Meet Mago Contributor Claire French