Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.
Today we see two letters from 1958 between Helene and her attorney Paul A Eisler. The letters were found together and they were translated on the same day. I imagined Helene’s December letter would be a reply to Eisler’s September one. As is so often the case, my lack of German led me to jump to the wrong conclusion.
The letterhead reminds us how addresses and phone numbers changed over the years. Rather than a zip code, the area of San Francisco is indicated by the number 4. The letterhead uses the old phone number convention – “YUkon” to indicate the first two digits of the telephone number, instead of numbers 98. When I was a child, we still used the names. It was easier to remember a word/2-letter prefix plus 5 numbers than 7 numbers. I suppose the convention fell out of favor when we began to use area codes more often.
September 2, 1958
Subject: HILFSFONDS
My dear lady,
We are very happy to be able to tell you that quite soon the amount of 20,000. Schillings as a payment will reach you. You will probably receive the money in September and we ask you right after that to send to us the equivalent of 2,066.10 Schillings, which is the honorarium for our Viennese lawyer. As you already know, we here do not take any honorarium for allowances from the aid fund.
At the same time, we would ask that you make an appointment by telephone with our office since we will need your signature for any possible future allocations. This needs to happen as soon as possible, because the period designated for this to happen is going to end on the 10th of this month.
Greetings,
Paul A. Eisler
“Hilfsfonds” is the generic term for relief fund – during COVID Austria provided “Corona Hilfsfonds”. Here, it refers to the Fund for the Settlement of Certain Property Losses of Political Persecutees (see page 23 and forward of the document in the link). The purpose of the fund was to make “lumpsum awards to natural persons who were the owners of properties, legal rights or interests in Austria which … were the subject of forced transfer or measures of confiscation on account of the racial origin or religion of the owner or in the course of other National Socialist persecution of the owner…” The awards were for confiscated bank accounts, securities, money, mortgages, and “payment of discriminatory taxes”.
According to an inflation calculator, $700 in 1958 is worth about $6,400 in 2021.
San Francisco, Dec 9. 1958
Dear Dr. Eisler!
I just can’t help express to you how impressed I am that you put on such a successful evening. It was a great success indeed. My guests (paying guests of course) were enthusiastic, especially my young daughter-in-law -- 100% American – she sang with gusto and with an incomparable American accent, only part of Viennese songs. We had a splendid time. I most sincerely thank you for the lovely evening. Your talent, improvising and propagating the feeling of a Viennese Heuriger is really quite astounding. It must be something you inherited. Attorney and impresario also.
With my best greetings
As I mentioned above, the content of this letter was unexpected — rather than a business letter regarding the legal matter he was helping her with, Helene writes of a music-filled evening, much like the ones she enjoyed in Vienna. Helene’s son Harry got married in 1958. Throughout their marriage, Harry and Marie made beautiful music together. At age 95, she still loves to sing.
I wonder whether the musical evening in 1958 was a fundraiser like the one Paul Zerzawy was involved in that we saw in the October 14th post.