VIENNA HUNGRY BUT CHEERFUL

Southland Times, Issue 25796, 6 October 1945, Page 5

VIENNA HUNGRY BUT CHEERFUL

PEOPLE REBUILDING CITY

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) KLAGENFURT, October 2.

Vienna, smashed, hungry and occupied by Allied troops and facing a tragically difficult winter can still smile and jest, and the spirit of the people in their hour of darkest misery is amazingly calm and cheerful. New Zealanders who visited the city last weekend found much to open their eyes, and the party returned with feelings of admiration for the way these former enemy people are facing up to the appallingly difficult task of rebuilding their beautiful city and resuming their normal lives.

Vienna is much more badly damaged than any of the big Italian cities and many of its magnificent and worldfamous buildings are now smashed and burned-out ruins. Business areas suffered very badly, too, and several residents declared that the Nazis wantonly perpetrated much of this damage before giving up the city. CLEANING OF DEBRIS . Already the Viennese have made considerable progress in clearing the debris and, throughout the British and American sectors of occupation are cleared spaces and neatly stacked piles of bricks and rubble. Much of this work has been accomplished by a regulation that everyone in Vienna must work 16 hours a month at cleaning up the city. A common sight is of parties of men and women loading handcarts with debris or pushing them through the streets to dumps. Though many of these people were obviously unused to manual labour, a surprisingly large number were laughing and joking as they worked, and they returned greetings very ilyThe general attitude of this former enemy city is in strong contrast to that of Rome, which greeted its liberators with such lavish adulation and now makes it perfectly clear that it is a cobelligerent and that our troops are tolerated only of necessity.

It seems practically impossible to buy anything in such Viennese shops as are open. A very large proportion are either burned out or closed, with completely bare shelves. Those open show practically no stock and shopkeepers declare that they have nothing more to sell.

The production of sterling will sometimes achieve results and probably when conditions in the city are nearer normal a certain quantity of goods will appear. FANTASTIC PRICES In toe meantime a black market flourishes and prices have reached fantastic heights. A small tin of cocoa will fetch £7, cigarettes 1/6 and 2/6 each. A woman who appeared on the black market toe other day with a few pah's of much-darned stockings was immediately rushed by eager buyers. The black market is very busy in one square swarming with people, where vendors casually open up shopping bags and are immediately surrounded by inquiring purchasers.

Residents declared that the food situation was much better since the arrival of the British and the Americans. “We are now getting little, but it is enough to live on,” said one. There is none of the prewar gaiety at night. The streets are unsafe at night and few people venture to be out late.