Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships. Unfortunately I do not have a family tree for Vitali’s family - this letter is the closest thing I have to understanding his family relationships.
Today and tomorrow we have a letter from Eva and Harry after they arrived in Istanbul where they had gone to get their passports to be able to go to the U.S. written to their parents in Vienna. In her letter from April 25, 1941, Helene refers to her children’s leaving two years earlier for Istanbul. It must have been nerve-wracking for children and parents for Eva and Harry to travel on their own in those challenging days. Eva was about to turn 18 and Harry was 15.
You can see that the letter was typed double sided to save money and was virtually illegible. Although it looks like one long paragraph, instead of paragraph breaks, my mother added a few extra spaces. In order to make it easier for Roslyn to translate, I transcribed it.
Istanbul 27/4//39 2:13am
Dear parents!
As we thought it would be, the ride through Hungary was very boring. But every 5 minutes, officials came by who helped us pass the time. One of them looked at the passport, he came a few minutes later and demanded to see the tickets, wrote something on them, and then another one came and looked at the tickets and tore something off. So they were playing stille-Post [“silent mail” - like our game of “Telephone”]. One customs official asked how much money we had and if we had new things with us. We denied that and he decided he was satisfied with our answer.
We got out in Belgrade because the train was going to be stopped there for a long time. We didn’t see much of the city, but just a few buildings that were lit up. We’d hardly gotten out when the train left. A newspaper boy led us across all of the tracks to get to our car in the train. The train was postponed till midnight. The part of the trip in Yugoslavia was really boring. It didn’t really get to be a pretty trip until Bulgaria. The mountains there remind us very much of Gesaüse [a national park in Austria].
In Sofia we had a two hour stop. We went with a technician and a senior storm leader who was involved in setting up a factory in Kazanlik [a town in Bulgaria]. We went through the city with them, but we didn’t get very far because the suburbs are quite big. There was a lot of fruit there. What we did see of Sofia was very pretty. But trucks were awfully bad and dirty. It’s really not that different from here. When our travel companion got out, we had two others get in to replace him. They told us they were technicians who wanted to set up a German paper and cellulose factory. We couldn’t see the region outside Bulgaria because it was already night and so we don’t know anything about Greece. At the Turkish border, there was the only customs check. They opened the suitcases and the other things were too shabby for them to bother with. The region was really pretty bleak, just a few storks were the only sign of life until we got to the suburbs of Istanbul. But then gradually we saw some mountains. The most beautiful part of the whole trip was when we saw the sea. That was really lovely. We could admire all the shadows. Shortly before we reached Istanbul we saw the city’s panorama from behind the wooden huts which were shabby and crumbling. That is more beautiful certainly than it seems in pictures. The whole things looks like castles in the air of poor people in these huts that we saw.
When we arrived we were picked up by Uncle Beppo and his daughter. We didn’t get the passport back. I had to go to the police station with Uncle Beppo and was asked why I didn’t have a Turkish visa. There is a Turkish law that a passport is only for one person. [Harry and Eva had a single passport]. With money and some good words, it’s possible to achieve quite a bit. The police chief talked to me for a while and said I should not go to the consulate and that I should just stay with my Turkish citizenship, However, and that is absolutely essential, I would have to learn Turkish. I have started already and can count to 1,000. Uncle Beppo said I have a good head for this. You would be amazed at how well I speak English. I speak English with cousin Lisette, and since we talk a lot, I am getting a lot of practice. We went for a visit to Uncle Isak. There, everybody was amazed that I could speak neither Spanish nor French. An office girl talked to me in English, but then she said she was so sorry English was so bad, she would have liked to know more about Vienna. What do you say about my newly developed talent for languages? With Uncle Isak I didn’t really speak much - he was really quite busy. He said he had already started to deal with the issue of your passport. Papa, you have no idea how many relatives you have! Aunt Fortune asked me over and over about you - why didn’t you come? If you were to come, would you stay here if you found employment? Really, every one of the relatives who were working in uncle’s office was very interested in you. There is so much more to write but I will let the others tell you. You need a lot more space than this.
For today, the best kisses and greetings.
EVA
P.S. Everything is cheaper here in Vienna although it seems to be the same stuff.
———
Harry Cohen
c/o Josef de Sevilya
Sisli, Sagdiç Sokak 14
Bomonti, ISTANBUL!Dear Parents!
The trip was very lovely except for Hungary and Yugoslavia. We had a whole compartment to ourselves, because the people who got in didn’t even dare to enter our compartment. In Sofia we had a 2 hour layover which we used to take a good look at the city. I will send you pictures soon. I thought Sofia would have been more modern. There’s fruit there!!!!!!!!! I bought a grapefruit for about 9 lewa, which is about 27rpf. Here in Istanbul there were no grapefruits until two years ago. Have you ever heard an international waterfall? You will see such a thing in the form of customs officials and train conductors. Every half hour one of the two came into our compartment and said “Pasaportapasaportpassbittepasporta, billetbilletefahrkartenbilletpas” at the speed of 25km/hour. Istanbul is very beautiful. I only saw it when I was riding through, but soon I will have a look at it with Beppo. For the central European taste, Istanbul is not very modern. I am now the private tutor for Albert. Beppo wants him to learn English and German. Albert is 13 years old and only knows French and Turkish. We converse with gestures, bits of Turkish and French, and the dictionary. I’ll write more soon since we want to get this letter into the mail. Harry.
This letter was such a gift to me – hearing my mother’s young voice. I’m not sure how we have these letters – perhaps the children brought them to the U.S. in their luggage? We do not have copies of later letters sent to Helene and Vitali in Vienna – presumably they were destroyed when they were deported to the Ravensbrück and Buchenwald in 1943.
Both Eva and Harry go out of their way to disparage what they see on the way to and in Istanbul. This was also true in an early letter from Eva upon her arrival in San Francisco. I wonder whether they truly thought there was no place as wonderful as their home in Vienna or whether they were trying to comfort their parents. Or perhaps a bit of both.