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In the August 8 post we saw a letter from Robert Zerzawy written on August 11 in German to his aunt Helene. Today’s letter was written the following day in English to his cousin Eva. Perhaps he wasn’t sure how much German Eva remembered.
12 August 1964
Dear Eva,
Yesterday I posted a letter to Helen. I didn’t find the time to address you at the same day as I had in mind. I had also first to read over our last correspondence to try and find out where we stopped the last time and how far we are informed about each other in very broad outlines. What I found is a charming letter from you dated 10th April 1963 adorned by a delightful snap of Paul’s of Helen, i.e. Helen-Rose, on her fourth birthday. I just remember with a shock that I completely forgot her birthday in March which is a shame and at the same time symptomatic for my state of mind. We agreed once that our birthdays are useful links in our contact – moral impulses without which there is the risk that any communication might stagnate. Alas, you did not respond to my request for disclosing your exact age – I somehow mislaid the note of your birthday. You didn’t reach the stage where you might wish to conceal it. Which leaves the explanation that you want to protect me from committing myself. That’s nice of you but I take the risk. So please let me know and give us the treble chance to write each other within a calendar year.
My letter to Helen (senior) must have sounded very dry and factual. It is difficult to write if one knows so little about each other’s life, environment and happenings – that’s why I appeal to you to inform me with a few lines about your mother’s health and doings. I trust you will bring me at the same time a little up to date about the Goldsmiths and Lowells in general and Helen Rose in particular. – I wished she could pay me a visit as she wanted to do on a first impulse. We shall have to wait for a few years. Instead of it I got quite some visitors who bring the past back. The other day a couple from Valparaiso turned up whom I had seen in Brüx [now Most] 42 years ago and today a girl phoned to bring me greetings from Hermann Zerzawy from Vienna. She is herself a Zerzawy by birth from the “aryan” lineage around Brünn [now Brno]. – Hilda had unexpectedly sent a Xmas card from San Francisco with a hint that she might come to Europe. I had hoped that she might then bring some news from you but so far she hasn’t turned up. Is she still in San Francisco and what are her latest exploits?
Last but least, I should like to know how you are getting on. In your professional life as well as in the home. And I fear it will mean an effort but I hope you do it all the same.
With my love to you all,
Robert
As with many things in my archive, although this letter refers to another letter, they were found in 2 different locations. My mother Eva kept this letter, which had ended up together with a letter from 1966, so it was only recently that I figured out which pages went with which year. Eva’s brother Harry saved his mother’s correspondence, which included the August 11 letter.
In this letter, Robert speaks of forgetting to send a note on my 4th birthday in March of 1963. I assume he is referring to the photo below taken by my father (who used his middle name Paul in the U.S., just to confuse things).
Robert’s letter tells us that the cousins made a “pact” to mark birthdays in order to make sure they kept in touch –the more birthdays to be celebrated, the more connected they would feel. Yet, here it was, more than a year since their previous contact.
Harry and Eva had far less of a connection to Robert than to his brother Paul. He was more than 20 years older, and never lived in Vienna or the U.S. with them.
It’s nice to see that Robert maintained connections to people from their past. We saw a letter to Hermann Zerzawy in the April 23 post.