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Today we have the first letter Helene writes to her nephew Paul Zerzawy as he is en route to America. In the post of April 10, we learned about the logistics of his travel.

 Vienna, 12 April 1939 [answered from Southampton 13 April]

Dear Paul! Your greeting from London was both a pleasure and a surprise.

The point of writing today is only to reach you while you’re still in Europe and wish you a good trip and to express my hope that I hear from you very, very soon and I will be using your New York address in a short amount of time. Please greet Arthur and his family from me and tell them how much I would be happy to see them again. I have already told you that our eviction was rejected. We have taken care of this worry. We have not heard anything yet about the children and the waiting around is demoralizing for me.

Paul, I wish you all the best for the future!

I believe Goethe said ‘“Do the best, throw it into the sea, if the fish doesn’t see it, then God will see it.”

Throw all your dark thoughts into the sea and keep only the most beautiful and good ones in your memory. We have much in common. We have many common experiences and into the ocean, maybe we really will not be separated.

Many, many kisses from me to all of you
Helen

I was struck by the sweetness of this bon voyage letter. Like in letters to her children, Helene talks about their common bond and history, which for them goes back more 40 years. For once, she is not actually quoting Goethe. He wrote a poem called Der Fischer but this quotation comes from elsewhere.

As I searched for the quotation, I discovered that many cultures take credit for it. Is it German? Turkish? Greek? Arabic? Other?

I found it as a German song (Tue das Gute und wirf es ins Meer, sieht es der Fisch nicht, so sieht es der Herr.: Do what is good and throw it into the sea, if the fish doesn't see it, the Lord sees it.), as a German aphorism from the Turkish (!) (Tu' Gutes und wirf das Brot ins Meer! Sieht es der Fisch nicht, so sieht's doch der Herr!: Do good and throw the bread into the sea! If the fish doesn't see it, the Lord will see it!), and as a Turkish proverb (İyilik yap denize at, balık bilmezse halik bilir.: Do good and throw it into the sea; if the fish don’t know it, God will.)