Word: vienna
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Vaslav Nijinsky, lithe, high-leaping ballet great of 30 years ago, reported slain as a madman by the Nazis last May, turned out to be living in a bomb-blasted Vienna hotel. His wife Romola told reporters that he had almost regained his reason when he left a Swiss asylum in 1940, but life in air-raided Europe had set him back again. At 55 he looked 70: his cheeks were sunken from a near-starvation diet (he lost 40 pounds in the past four months). A reporter could hold his attention only by drawing him doodles. Yet, though...
Walton reported his first impressions of Vienna...
...must be said that in Vienna U.S. and Red soldiers do not get along well together. Both sides display suspicion and belligerence. Minor altercations, especially at night when the Russians are quick on the trigger, have been frequent, considering the small number of Americans in the city. In addition to language difficulty, the Russians have a definite inferiority complex. Said one officer to a group of correspondents: "You cannot call us ignorant. After all, we captured Berlin and Vienna and we know how to find the best restaurant in town...
...bread and gnawed at them without waiting to get home. All shops were closed except food markets, and their stocks were pitifully limited. Partial electric service has been restored, but there is no gas yet, and some Viennese families have gone months without one hot meal. From the Vienna woods plod long lines of poor women, many of them barefoot, sweating and staggering under heavy loads of faggots for the city's stoves...
Correspondent Walton reported one conversation that lit up like a torch the mood of many Viennese. A middle-aged Vienna woman said to him wearily: "I suppose it will be impossible for even America to send us all the food we need to survive. But the least the Allies can do is to distribute poison to those who want it. Now we don't even have any way to commit suicide. You will see when the gas is turned on again how many of us will kill ourselves before we starve to death...