She was not quite 17 when Austria was integrated into an enlarged version of Germany, which since 1933 had been governed as a post-democratic one-party dictatorship. The result amounted to a National Socialist take-over and a far more uncompromising implementation of National Socialist philosophy as a core underpinning of government strategy. Erna was classified as a Half-Jew or, in the derogatory term favoured by government, "Mischling". Her (Jewish) mother's business was &lt;a href="Aryanization"&gt;"aryanised" (confiscated and/or closed down)&lt;/a&gt;, and although the family were not expelled from their small apartment, they were now required to share it with two other families. Erna, by now engaged to Karl Musik, gave birth to the couple's first daughter - also called Erna - in 1942.