It occurred on June 28, 1914 so I doubt anyone alive can recall. Did any of your grandparents, their grandparents, or older relatives remember where they were when they learned he’d been assassinated?

27 comments

  3. I am not even sure whether any of my great grandparents had heard of his name. Doesn’t seem like something ordinary people here would know hundred years ago.

  4. My greatgreat grandpa was born in 1919 so like no they didnt. My greatgreatgreat grandparents died like half a century ago and no stories got passed along

  5. I don’t know anyone personally who was born before that date. My grandparents were all born much later. My grandpa and grandma on my mom’s side were born in 1922 and 1923 respectively and my grandpa and grandma on my dad’s side were born in 1933 and 1939 respectively. My great grandparents were probably old enough to remember it (especially the ones on my mom’s side) but I never met them.

    There are some people alive today who would remember, though, by the way. For example the oldest person alive is a Japanese lady called Kane Tanaka who will turn 119 in a few days. She was born on 2 January, 1903, which means she was 11 when Archduke Ferdinand was killed. That’s old enough to hear about it and also understand its implications.

  6. That’s such a insanely specific question, I find it highly unlikely that anyone has spoken to their great-grandparents about it.

  7. My oldest grandparent was born in 1924, my maternal great-grandparents were in India and one set of paternal great-grandparents died in a Nazi concentration camp. That leaves one set of great-grandparents who would have been teenagers in 1914 but who died in the 80s before I was born. I’ll ask my dad if he knows any stories they passed down. But if I’m honest, I don’t think anyone at the time would have understood the full significance of some Austrian guy getting assassinated.

  8. Very few people that were born before WW1 are still alive, of these the oldests would have been 5, too long ago to remember something

  9. My oldest grandparent was born in 1911 but was dead long before I was born. My paternal Grandma was born in 1912 and I had the privilege of knowing her until I was fifteen, but she was 6 and living on a farm in rural Ireland, so probably not all that aware of global politics. That sort of time in Ireland they had their own worries.

  11. My oldest ancestor whom I have come to know was my great-grandmother, who was born in 1914. She could barely read and write, and learned in church. I don’t know how many years she was in school, but my grandparents, for example, started working at the age of 11, so I guess she didn’t get a good education either and probably didn’t have any history lessons.

    She talked a lot about the Spanish Civil War, about how they had to take in people fleeing from of nearby large cities that were bombed from the sea and especially about starvation during and after the war. She talked about the everyday things that happened to them during that time, but I don’t remember her ever talking about Franco or the republic.

    I guess something similar happens with WWI and WWII, people will pass on to their children and grandchildren their personal experiences of the war or how it affected them, but I don’t think they stopped to talk about the Archduke, nor do I think they knew much about him.

  12. I was born in the U.S., but my grandparents emigrated from what is now Slovenia in the 1920s. My grandfather actually fought in WWI. He was a corporal in the Austro-Hungarian army. The only thing he talked about was how he was a prisoner of war of the Italians.

  13. I never met him in person, but in my house I have the memorial of my great-great-grandfather, a veteran of the Great War and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. He was a 16-year-old Italian emigrant to Mühlacker in Württemberg when he heard about the Sarajevo assassination and the outbreak of war at the end of July, from soldiers leaving for the front.

  14. Not these I remember, they were all in age of 10 or bellow so unlike ww2 this was never the part of any story for me.

  15. Actually I think other commenters are a bit over the top. If someone here was born in 1970, their grandparents may very well have remembered the start of the First World War and may have talked about it when they were a child/teen. Obviously dead now.

  16. My grand mother was 4 years old (but she died almots 20 years ago)

    She told that she remembered the screams of soldiers figting in the village (and i still have some stuff my great grand father took on the battlefield)

  17. When I was 10 years old (more or less) I used to spoke with an old man who had fought in WW1. I liked to chat with him, and one time he said that he had fought in the trenches and it had been terrible. He also said that he had been a “military officer” and so had ordered his subordinates to shoot enemy soldiers, but he personally had never fired…I don’t know if this make sense, or if it was just a white lie for a children. He didn’t like to spoke about WW1, and I loved other stories about when he worked as a lumberjack and as charcoal burner, so this is all I have about WW1.

  18. The oldest person I talked with was born in 1907, but I didn’t remember to ask that great question since I was 7 when they died.

  19. My great-great-grandfather was born in 1877 and died in 1965. My father was born in 1960, which means he got to know him as a 5 year old kid.

    I find it fascinating that my father got to know a man who was born in such a different time.

    On topic to your question: I have no idea what he did on the day of Franz Ferdinands assasination, but I know he was a strong supporter of the monarchy.

  20. Well, my grandfather was only born in the 1920’s, and my gread grandparents were all long dead before I was born, let alone old enough to talk about it.

  21. My great grandmother remembers where she was when the King (King Alexander) was assassinated in Marseille in 1934.

    But the start of the Great War, nope, everyone is dead.

  22. I can’t retrace my family tree that far, and I haven’t yet summoned a ghost, but when I do, that will, be among the first questions – I only need one of my forebearer’s skull for it, and some Worcestershire sauce

  23. I’m almost 50 and my great-grandparents, who were around when the event happened, have been dead for half a century now. So I have no idea of where they were when the Archduke was shot

  24. My grandma was 10 at that time. She did remember WW1 but never mentioned Ferdinand or any other reason why it started.

  27. I’d bet 50€ that nobody from my family who was alive back then even knows who he was or if he was killed.

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