Until my generation dies out completely, all of us I trust will come to this date--22 November--and remember where we were in 1963 when President Kennedy was slain. There are fewer of us each year, I guess, for only a few years ago newspapers would carry human interest stories on this fateful day interviewing ordinary people about their memories. Now reporters and editors are by and large too young to have been spectators of the events of that year themselves, so the date now passes almost unnoticed. Except by those who lived through that nightmare.
I was studying at the University of Vienna. My roommate and I rented a room from a Viennese "hausfrau," who regularly took in students to help with the rent. Along with the rent of the room came daily breakfast, which she brought in on a tray each morning. Before she entered the room, she sounded a warning gong--placed strategically outside the door--to announce her arrival. That morning she rushed into the room, where Phil and I were still blissfully dozing, and yelled, "Der Präsident ist tot!" (the president is dead). She did not say your president or the American president but the president. In a way, the choice of language was very important, for in the days and weeks that followed, we learned that this young, dynamic leader was indeed thought of as the president. It was my first understanding of how the rest of the world views the American president.
These were the days before instant 24/7 news. There were no satellites in the sky to broadcast words and pictures around the world. Film was loaded on a plane and sent abroad and then shown to international television audiences. So we waited for information--for hours and for days. Yes, the Austrian radio and television were providing audio coverage of the events, but I had been in Austria a short enough time that following radio news readers was a bit beyond my linguistic capabilities.
Vienna was as stunned as if an Austrian leader had been assassinated. We wandered the streets looking for news updates that we could understand. When people learned that we were Americans, they freely came up to us on the street to express their condolences. The Vienna Philharmonic gave a public concert that featured only the slow dirge-like movement from Beethoven's Third Symphony. I have never heard that movement since without recalling the somber performance in those sad days following the assassination.
Many shops in Vienna placed a photograph of President Kennedy in the window--a well-known portrait of the president, with a black crepe band stretched across the upper right-hand corner of the picture. I have searched the internet to find a copy of that picture which is still so fresh in my mind's eye, but to no avail. 22 November 1963. RIP, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
I was studying at the University of Vienna. My roommate and I rented a room from a Viennese "hausfrau," who regularly took in students to help with the rent. Along with the rent of the room came daily breakfast, which she brought in on a tray each morning. Before she entered the room, she sounded a warning gong--placed strategically outside the door--to announce her arrival. That morning she rushed into the room, where Phil and I were still blissfully dozing, and yelled, "Der Präsident ist tot!" (the president is dead). She did not say your president or the American president but the president. In a way, the choice of language was very important, for in the days and weeks that followed, we learned that this young, dynamic leader was indeed thought of as the president. It was my first understanding of how the rest of the world views the American president.
These were the days before instant 24/7 news. There were no satellites in the sky to broadcast words and pictures around the world. Film was loaded on a plane and sent abroad and then shown to international television audiences. So we waited for information--for hours and for days. Yes, the Austrian radio and television were providing audio coverage of the events, but I had been in Austria a short enough time that following radio news readers was a bit beyond my linguistic capabilities.
Vienna was as stunned as if an Austrian leader had been assassinated. We wandered the streets looking for news updates that we could understand. When people learned that we were Americans, they freely came up to us on the street to express their condolences. The Vienna Philharmonic gave a public concert that featured only the slow dirge-like movement from Beethoven's Third Symphony. I have never heard that movement since without recalling the somber performance in those sad days following the assassination.
Many shops in Vienna placed a photograph of President Kennedy in the window--a well-known portrait of the president, with a black crepe band stretched across the upper right-hand corner of the picture. I have searched the internet to find a copy of that picture which is still so fresh in my mind's eye, but to no avail. 22 November 1963. RIP, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
2 comments:
I was in Hong Kong. We were getting ready for Thanksgiving and had invited some sailors from visiting ships in the harbor. All leaves were canceled, of course and we all had a very toned down Thanksgiving that year.
We have to keep telling these stories.
Post a Comment