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Today we have a letter from someone named Baky, a friend from Istanbul. Helene left Istanbul in April and has been in San Francisco for three months.

Istanbul, August 15/46

My dear friend Mrs. Helene Cohen,

I received your letter and I was happy to read it and to know that you live with your dear children. But I am unhappy for you about your husband. I hope he is alive and you will be glad with him very soon. My dear it is very kind of you to write me all about you and I thank you for it.

You know very well that I am interested in your own happiness. My dear I was always waiting for your letter, and my opinion about you was right. Everybody asked me if I had news from you, adding “she has certainly forgotten you.” I answered “If she writes me or not it’s just the same, I love her the same.”

And now here is your dear very dear letter after long silence, you told me that you are longing for me; honestly? Thanks; you can believe me dear friend that I am longing for you too. I have never forgotten since our last handshake in ? [perhaps Eminönü? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emin%C3%B6n%C3%BC] when you told me “Baky; I have the impression that it is not our last interview” but I think San F is so far, is it possible? But near of heart. Now my dear friend you ought to take care of your own health; you have suffered so much in Mme Lovenstein’s and Mme Sarna’s [?] or Dr. L…’s [?] country isn’t it?

My very dear friend, I read with great attention all about your voyage with their disagreements, then your happy meeting of your dear children and all about the life in San Francisco, you said that there is abundance of fruit; you are lucky it is just for you the best food, don’t forget but the best luck is to live with a nice gentleman like your son-in-law.

My dear, time and time again when I come across all your things you gave me I kiss them because I feel that I see your own gay, light and frank face.

You no need going to school, but I think that I need more than you.

Here the same life: from hospital home and from home to hospital, I am working working then I write nothing but English to write you more correctly. Give my best regards to your dear children. My parents send their compliments.

With affectionate kisses I remain yours

Baky

P.S. Dear I couldn’t answer you sooner because I was unwell, excuse me please.
Don’t forget me.

I do not know who Baky was – this is the only letter I have from her and I haven’t seen her name mentioned anywhere else. In the letter posted on March 4, Helene wrote about being hospitalized in Istanbul for a “nervous breakdown.” Baky writes of working at a hospital – I wonder if they met there? I assume that the names I can’t decipher refer to officials at Ravensbrück who caused Helene and others so much suffering.

One thing that strikes me from this and other letters to Helene is how much people seemed to love her – these letters paint a picture of someone endearing, generous, and charismatic. It must have been such a disorienting and disturbing time for everyone – both those who fled and those who stayed: the trauma of the recent war; economic hardship; one’s near and dear ones often spread across the globe with little expectation of ever seeing or connecting with each other again, or certainly not in the intimate way they were used to.