A Story to Be Told

In loving memory of my grandmother Edith Hüttinger, nee Edith Halpern, who was born on August 30th, 1913 in the city of Vienna, Austria to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. She lived through two world wars, as well as a monarchy, a dictatorship and a democracy. Of Jewish descent, she did not follow her father into emigration to Sweden in 1938 but decided to stay with her sister in Vienna, where she worked in a fabric and sewing store in the second district. She fell in love with her roommate, a medical student from the middle east and colleague to her later husband. In 1942, shortly after she got pregnant, the student died under unclear circumstances without ever seeing his native country again. Although the Gestapo made clear to her, that neither she nor her yet unborn son are going to survive, she decided to keep the child, choosing life over despair, knowing deep inside that the Nazis can’t be around forever. After the war she was finally allowed to marry Dr. Karl Maria Hüttinger, an Austrian doctor she befriended in 1937, whose relations helped her avoiding deportation and certain death.

She passed away peacefully on January 19th, 2008 at age 94.

Hers is the story of a century of betrayal, deceit, despair, survival, joy, passion and love. A story as complex and simple as life itself. A story she passed on to me and a story yet to be told.

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