"Only there wasn't much free time"

Created: 01/08/2022, 4:31 PM

Family photo from 1929: Leni (with a bow) and three of her five siblings and their parents.

The carpenters had just moved from Aubing to Eschenried.

© Photo: Pia Arthofer

Dachau - Leni Arthofer was known to many Dachau residents.

She lived in the shoemaker's house on Färbergasse, in the middle of the old town.

The people of Dachau brought their shoes to their husband Sepp to have them repaired.

Leni Arthofer as a young woman.

© Pia Arthofer

Leni Arthofer, then called Tischler, was born in 1923 on a farm in the municipality of Aubing.

When she was six years old, she and her family moved to Eschenhof, a small wooden house with two rooms.

Leni grew up with five siblings.

"Actually we would have been eight, but only five survived," she says of her memories.

Her parents worked on the Eschenhof estate.

She went to school in Mitterndorf because the Eschenhof belonged to the municipality of Günding.

The altarpiece by Richard Huber in Eschenried.

© Pia Arthofer

When a school barrack was built in Eschenried in 1934, she went to school there.

Leni Arthofer explains: “We were all seven classes in one room with around 70 students.

They all had to be kept busy at the same time. ”But the young teacher, Arthofer recalls,“ knew how to inspire his students so that everyone was eager to participate ”.

Because the parents worked a lot, the children were left to their own devices: “I had to cook for the little siblings, wash clothes for six people, feed the sow, and look after the geese and chickens. Saturday was cleaning day. ”Leni also delivered the church newspaper and the Sunday newspaper. During the harvest, she helped the farmers picking potatoes and threshing. There she earned a little money and above all: there was plenty to eat there!

In autumn Leni had to look after cows and had some other tasks: “On Wednesday I was a sacristan, I also had to clean the church and replace the flowers. I couldn't forget the ringing of the midday bells and the bells! ”Once the Dachau painter Richard Huber was making a painting in the church when Leni came. He asked her to model him. Leni agreed. And so today you can see a picture with the girl Leni in the church in Eschenried.

When Leni came home from school in 1937, she went straight to work, as was customary for many children at the time. Boys were often allowed to do an apprenticeship, but girls were not. That is why many worked as maids, including Leni. She went to a farmer in Sulzemoos. At that time she was just 14 years old. “On the first day we went out at four thirty, but soon it was even earlier. I had to work in the stable, in the house and in the fields. We had five days of work, so there was a lot of work, ”she reports. The farmer at the time was “always in a good mood and I enjoyed my work”.

When an older maid was hired whom she couldn't please, Leni went to Candlemas and started working with the neighbors. February 2 used to be the day the servants changed jobs. The neighbor was a farmer and beverage manufacturer. Simon Gasteiger produced lemonade under his abbreviation SIGA and supplied the whole area. There was a lot of work to do: “My free time in Sulzemoos was on Sunday afternoon. In the evening, stable work had to be done again. Every three weeks I went home on my bike. "

Leni not only helped in agriculture, but also in the beverage factory: “I was soon allowed to work on the machines.

I liked that! ”A short time later she was used even more in the beverage factory:“ Now it was August 1938, and stupid Hitler started the war.

The sons and the drivers had to move in with the trucks.

We were only allowed to keep an old Ford. "

Operating the new machines was a challenge because the sons who knew them best were drafted into the war.

So Simon Gasteiger's eldest daughter, who was married in Fürstenfeldbruck, came to Sulzemoos and showed Leni how to make the syrup, heat the kettle and operate the machines.

Leni was 16 years old then.

She also had to drive to the customers with Simon Gasteiger and help with the delivery. Demand was high, especially when it was hot. Simon Gasteiger hired a young man, but he turned out to be a bad driver. Simon Gasteiger, on the other hand, placed greater trust in Leni's driving skills: from then on she did her laps every day.

After eight years, Leni changed jobs and at the age of 21 went to Dachau as a housemaid, “to Geisberger in the cinema, today's Ludwig-Thoma-Haus”. There she worked in the household and in the cinema. “Mr and Mrs have been very good to me. I was also praised once! But there wasn't much free time. ”Leni met her husband while dancing, and in 1946 they married. The couple lived cramped with their in-laws. Sepp trained as a shoemaker and took over his father's workshop. Leni helped her husband when there was a lot to do. “All that Sepp didn't like to do was my work. The household and the children could not be neglected. "

When her two children grew up, she looked for a job so that she could receive a small pension in old age.

“The Volksbank was looking for a cleaning lady.

I asked Sepp for his opinion.

He left it to me. ”At that time women still needed the consent of their husbands if they wanted to go to work.

Leni worked there until she was 65.

She enjoyed her garden and her grandchildren well into old age.

Leni loved flowers.

She tended not only her own little garden and her husband's grave with devotion, but also other orphaned graves in the cemetery.

She was in excellent health until she died in March this year at the age of 97.

Annegret Braun