Irma Müller

* 1926

  • The girl was the maid of the peasant and the son was the stable boy. Our neighbor had a horse which had been in action at the front lines and from all the shooting, it had gone mad and had to be sold and out the house. The horse was furious and was running around the yard and the peasant himself did not dare to catch and calm it. So his twelve-year-old boy had to do it himself. Well, this is how the children were treated at that time. I came from school then and I told myself: ‘I’ll not go into agriculture’.

  • "We traveled in a railway car and every time we needed to go to the toilet, we had to wait until the train halted and then we would go to the toilet underneath the car. Once, we even found a real toilet next to the railway. That was such a peculiarity for that time. Then we rolled all the way down to Landshut, where I believe we halted for a long time. Then we resumed our journey and went on to Vilsbiburg, where they dropped us off at the place of the peasant. Well, we had barely any belongings to speak of. We had this folding chair that my parents brought with them. It was made by somebody back at home for us. He said: 'when your parents are on the way, they need a chair to sit on. They will not be allowed to take any of their property with them'. So he made us this folding chair.“

  • “My sisters helped me down there quite a bit. We had a cousin in Hof. My sisters took the teaching contract and the exam diploma with them for me and went to Hof to the labor office. At the office, they said: ‘you have her papers with you’. And he said: ‘she’s already employed’. That’s how quickly I got a job in Hof. ‘She’s already employed’. Then we went to work in the Schweigert weaving mill down there. And they immediately arranged an accommodation for us. We lived in the Schweigert villa. That’s where Hitler used to stay for a night in earlier days. We lived there – us, the refugees. We had two rooms on the upper floor.”

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    Hof, 27.08.2014

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The girl was the maid of the peasant and the son was the stable boy...

Irma Müller as a young woman
Irma Müller as a young woman
photo: privat

Irma Müller, born Ludwig, is the fifth child of a family of peasants from Neuberg nearby Aš. She was born on April 13, 1926 and her parents had by then already nearly reached 50 years of age. She attended a Volkschule in Neuberg and completed an apprenticeship for a weaver. Her childhood and youth was shaped by the harsh reality of countryside life, working on the field and going to school. Although her father sympathized with the Social Democrats, the family was nevertheless deported from Czechoslovakia after the end of WWII. At first, the family found shelter with a peasant family from Landshut, where they were well received and treated friendly. In December 1946, the family moved to Hof, where Irma got a job at a local weaving mill. It was here where she shortly thereafter met her husband, Kurt Müller, who, however, died in 1952 and she thus was left a widow. Like her father, Irma joined the Seliger Community, traveled Europe for a number of years and took care of her parents until their death. Among other destinations, she would frequently visit her former home country with the Seliger Community. Until her retirement, she was employed at a public swimming pool in Hof, a theater and in a radio store.