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Today we see two letters written six years apart from Helene’s friend Paula. During the war, Paula was one of the few friends who visited Helene while she and Vitali were separated from their children. Paula continued to write until at least 1955. As we saw in the July 11th post, mail from Vienna was still being censored, this time by the Allies. As in earlier posts, we see Paula’s letters become less coherent as the years go by. Her sentences often go on for over 150 words, long even by German standards. My translator tried to find natural breaks to make the letters more comprehensible.
Vienna, 10 December 1946
My dear dear Helene!
Finally I got the dear letter from you and am very sad that you hurt yourself. I hope everything is okay now. My dear Helene, you write if I have already received the package. I have actually gotten two — one small one from France and nothing else yet except those. It will come in time. It always takes awhile. There was a ship strike and that had an effect. In any case, I thank you so much, but I worry that you scrimp and save and maybe that your children have a hard time. Maybe don’t send any more because I couldn’t stand if you were to suffer because of me, because I know how much you love us and you want to give us everything and I thank your dear children for all the things. Dear Helene, I was at the Kultusgemeinde [Jewish religious community in Vienna] again, and through the newspaper I reported to Herr Krell that maybe we could still find out something. I see Vitali so often in my dreams and I see that I believe that he must come soon. I can’t believe that this splendid person wouldn’t exist anymore. Annemie also talks about him so much and it’s so strange that the child was born in the same month as your husband, and he was always so proud of that — do you remember? Everything that she did was good. Dear Helene, I must tell you one sad thing. I was at the doctor and he told me that if my child doesn’t get better food with more fat in it, she will probably only survive for two years. She is growing so quickly that her heart and her lungs cannot keep up. Can you imagine how I feel at the thought of losing my child? I was in Salzburg again and got various things for the child. God should make it so that she does not get sick on me because it is so cold and we have no coal for the winter. Only 200 kilos for the entire winter and my mother has promised that she would give me some of hers.
Yesterday Frau Else was here to visit us and of course we speak about you and she loves the child, gives the little one a pretty red cap - you know how the little one is always dressed beautifully, so if we can keep it together we’ll make it through this ugly time. Dear Helene, you ask what I am doing and what I am living on. I have two rooms and a closet - the closet I have rented to a Jewish boy. He is 27 years old and was in a concentration camp. He is going to America as soon as it is his turn. So sometimes I cook when he brings things. And then I earn something too. He has plenty of money and he pays well. I have fixed up my room so that’s it’s cozy here. I certainly have lost a lot, but in the living room I have managed to keep it together although some things are still broken. However, you know a woman’s hand can sometimes make things look better, but actually everything that was in the basement was stolen, especially my underwear and my clothes. I am so poor with my things and I don’t really have much to wear anymore, but another time will come. The main thing is that when the little one has it, you know I just live for the child. Dear Helene, Else will also write to you and she will go to her sister’s in America and then I will be alone. Yes, I would love to see you again. It was so nice when we were together, such splendid people as you and Vitali, sometimes I think maybe we all will get together in life again. I cannot believe that I will never see you again and your wonderful children. My dear Helene, you write it is a matter of course that you send me packages. No, my dear, first your children have to work to do that and then I have done everything out of love for you and I am just so sorry that you have gotten so few of the packages of all the good things. Helene, dear Helene, I would love to have a picture of you and from your children. The one I have with her tennis racket, you can’t really see very well and if you had one, we could look at you and your children every day. Annemie is sending you a picture of herself of her soon and a letter. I am curious to see when she finishes it. She has clairvoyance like Vitali did. She often says something that is really exactly right. Now, when your letter has arrived, then she says “Oh I see that is from Tante Helen and Irna” and together and the next day it was really so - both letters were there. So she loves her grandmother very much and everything is about the child for her. She wants to spend a few days in Salzburg at Christmas, she gets to go there because she doesn’t have school because they don’t have coal and the school rooms are too cold for the children to be in so she gets to go visit her much beloved grandmother and then she has better food there, because then she can get milk which is not possible in Vienna. Oh, how good it is that you are not in Vienna anymore dear Helene and that you don’t have to go through this bad time here. As much as I would love to have you here, I wouldn’t want you to starve, that would be terrible, and the extreme cold. Yes, Helene, this year you will spend the first Christmas night with your beloved children. I wish with all my heart that it goes very well, that you have a good day, and won’t be so sad. I know and I understand that you really miss Vitali, but look, maybe there will be a miracle that happens and I cannot believe that this dear and good man will not come soon. Herr Krell is doing everything he can to find out something. Dear Helene, I am going to write you an address now which you can probably do more easily in America than I can from here. Write to the organization Hic [probably HIAS] and then you must give them all the exact information you have - that your husband was alive in March 1945 and he got away from Buchenwald in the long marches. At this time he was entirely healthy and that I got another letter for the child’s birthday and he asked for a certain kind of package which I also sent. Dear Helene, your nephew is not doing so badly with money and maybe he as I have done can write everywhere. And I will try to see if my lawyer can help in some way perhaps. He had someone from Buchenwald staying with him back in the day, a fellow understood that he knew someone named Cohen and that he was there when they marched. Helene, I still have hope and I don’t give up, my dearest.
Paula’s post-war address in Vienna was on Invalidenstrasse, less than a half-mile from Helene and Vitali’s old home on Seidlgasse. The package Paula received from France may have been sent by Lucienne Simier, with whom Helene became close at Ravensbrück — see May 8th post. Paula makes it clear that post-war Vienna is not a desirable place to be.
[Received December 8, 1952]
My dearest Helen!
I thank you for your dear letter. You must have already gotten mine. I see that you are also having problems with your apartment and yes my dearest, it’s about time that you get some peace but all difficulties go away and we just have to go through everything, my dear Helene. Just keep the faith and all the difficult stuff will pass by, as soon as Vitali is with you things will be very different. You will have read what has happened in Prague [Probably referring to November 24, 1952 trial] and of course that will have consequences for us too and it is better that Vitali hasn’t come yet because otherwise he might have to go through difficulties here again like in the year 1940, and he realizes that.
Dear good Helen, you must not give up hope because otherwise you just won’t be able to stick it out and believe and it will all turn out okay. Look how bad we are doing and still we say there has to come an end to this time too.
My dear good one, we all wish you a good Christmas celebration and especially a happy new year and stay healthy and believe it that it cannot last all that much longer and then Vitali will come because he also has a hard time in Turkey and he shouldn’t really be there and he is living under an assumed name and he must always have some fear hoping that nobody finds it out. Thank God now he is doing better and as soon as he can he will go away. Believe it. More I cannot write about this because he does not want anyone to really notice him.
Dear Helene this will pass and then dear God does not let his children fall. For today I will end my writing and I will write to you soon again and I would hope that you will get the letter before Christmas. We all send you greetings and kisses and we wish you good health and that you will get some peace.
Your dear friends kiss and greet you. We think of you often.
Have hope that everything will be okay
Kisses, Paula
As we have seen in previous letters, Paula kept Helene’s hopes alive about seeing Vitali again, often asserting that she had been in contact with him. Unfortunately, her optimism was unfounded. In fact, she had seen Vitali in her dreams, but nowhere else.