Blockade: The Diary of an Austrian Middle-Class Woman, 1914-1924

Anna Eisenmenger, the middle-class wife of a Viennese physician, suffered the deprivations and losses of war. In 1914, the Eisenmenger family consisted of Anna and her husband; three sons, Otto, Karl, and Erni; a daughter, Liesbeth; Liesbeth's husband, Rudi; and Liesbeth's newborn son, Wolfi. By 1918, Eisenmenger's husband had died from overwork and poor nutrition, Otto had been missing for several years on the Russian front, and Karl and Rudi both had been wounded. Eisenmenger kept a diary during the war which described the deprivations and hardships of life as well as the mental toll ward had taken on her sons. [Stanford Libraries]