Childhood
Born in 1927, Pawlik was regarded as a child prodigy, able to jump a single axel and do a large number of spins at the age of four. In her teens she would get up at 4 a.m. daily to run to the Vienna ice rink (Wiener Eislaufverein), for practice before going to school. Austrian skaters were impeded in the 1930s and 40s by the fact that there were no indoor skating halls and they were restricted to practicing in winter.
Nazi Germany's absorption of Austria in 1938 and World War II destroyed sportsmen's lives and careers. Pawlik, for example, was due to compete (aged 12) in the singles, in the 1940 Winter Olympics, and in the pairs with her later husband Rudi Seeliger. However, they could only take part in domestic competitions, becoming German youth champions, both individually and as a couple. In addition to that, they became the 1942 Austrian Pairs Champions (that were called Ostmark Champions at that time due to the fact that Austria did not exist from 1938 to 1945). Drafted into the German Army, Rudi Seeliger was captured by the Red Army and had to work as a slave coal-miner until his return to Austria in 1949.
Read more about this topic: Eva Pawlik
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“Most childhood problems don’t result from “bad” parenting, but are the inevitable result of the growing that parents and children do together. The point isn’t to head off these problems or find ways around them, but rather to work through them together and in doing so to develop a relationship of mutual trust to rely on when the next problem comes along.”
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“I long for scenes where man has never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator God And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.”
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