Читать книгу Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women онлайн

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December 1941: In her second year at Vassar, Japan bombed American ships in Pearl Harbor. “This took away our innocence.” Several of her classmates quit their studies and married boyfriends leaving for military service. The rest of the class shortened the four years of study by skipping vacations, many then enlisting in jobs replacing the men that had left for military service. “Life for us suddenly became very serious, politically also. It was a shock. All of us had been born in the time between the wars. We suddenly felt very patriotic. Communication with friends and relatives in Switzerland was blocked. Our only contact with Europe was through the radio. Every evening at six o’clock we gathered around the radio to hear the news from England. Often in the background one could hear the explosion of bombs. On the morning we learned that Hitler had marched into Poland, mother and I went out to the garden to work off our distress. Thinking that father was already in the office, we were very surprised to find him also in the garden, weeding. He had heard the news on the way to the office and was too upset to go to work.”