Читать книгу Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women онлайн

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“One day he surprised us without warning: ‘We are moving to the Ticino!’, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. My brother was not affected, since he was already doing an apprenticeship. I was in third grade, had many school friends and was abruptly uprooted. Yet I simply adapted and even found it adventurous.” Mother had no say in this, and in March 1938 moved, without complaining, all our belongings for the umpteenth time. “This time father rented a four-storey villa in a large park in Castagnola.” For Rosa everything was new again, including the language. “It was a wonderful time for me, ‘il mio paradiso, my own paradise’. On foot I went to the Swiss-German school in Lugano, swam in Lake Lugano and played for hours in the enchanting park. I did not know what boredom was. Dozens of animals were my playmates – geese, chickens and rabbits.” In 1939 oil became scarce. “We lived on only one level in the villa and burned wood in our furnace.” Father Lechner eventually abandoned the paradise, and the family moved into an apartment in Lugano Besso. “Even today I remember the loss of the park with sadness.”