Five years after successfully passing the entrance exam, Franz Meißl’s school career at the Rieder Gymnasium seemed to be over. In September 1943, the 94-year-old received the call-up order for air force helpers.
When he had to move into the artillery barracks in Linz on January 5, 1944, Meißl had just turned 15. Many months of uncertainty and doubt followed, until he returned home on May 6, 1945 through “fortunate circumstances”, as he says today. Meißl did not want to give up school.
“Two years followed, in which we received all the missed educational material in an urgent procedure,” he says. Meißl finally graduated from high school in 1947 – and now, 75 years later, he met three former classmates again.
Franz Meißl, Elfriede Hofmann, Josef Hofmann and Ekhard Marcinkiewicz attended the 100-year celebration of the Rieder Gymnasium together and were welcomed there by more than 1000 visitors. Josef Hofmann remained closely associated with the school after graduating from high school in 1947: he was a teacher there for many years and was also provisional director. At that time, his wife Elfriede was his classmate for a while, but graduated from high school a year later, in 1948.
“We are in close contact with our jubilee high school graduates, Mr. Marcinkiewicz is currently involved as an author for our commemorative publication and is busy on the road in the city of Ried,” says Andreas Hofinger, headmaster of the Rieder Gymnasium.
Some of the football fans in the Innviertel will still remember the name of Josef Hofmann: In the post-war period, Hofmann, also known as “Bärli”, was a game designer at SV Ried. Hofmann ended his career in 1951 and narrowly missed promotion to the national league with the SVR.
Source: Nachrichten
